The Rice Bomber
白米炸弹客
Taiwan, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.
Director: Zhuo Li 卓立.
Rating: 5/10.
Wannabe political drama is a lost opportunity in Taiwan cinema.
STORY
Taibei, 10 Dec 2003. A small homemade bomb explodes in a park and rice seeds are scattered everywhere. Back in May 1988, in Erlin township, Zhanghua county, west central Taiwan, Yang Jumen and his younger, mentally-damaged brother Yang Dongcai were still children as farmers demonstrated in Taibei over the government’s lack of support, despite the fact that new president Li Denghui had studied agricultural economics and made his career in land reform. In 2000 Yang Rumen (Huang Jianwei) received a prison spell for revenging himself on some bullies while doing military service. Discharged in 2001, he returned to Zhanghua to live with his farmer grandparents (Lv Fulu, Lv Liaobao) while Yang Dongcai (Zhang Shaohuai) lived with his father (Wu Fan) in Jilong. Yang Rumen bumped into a young woman, nicknamed Troublemaker (Xie Xinying), whom he grew up with but who had moved away to Taizhong. The daughter of a wealthy businessman, she claimed to be a “revolutionary” but had razor-blade scars on her arms. Yang Rumen also befriended an aboriginal kid (Yang Pengyu) selling goods on the street to support his two younger siblings and alcoholic father. Yang Rumen visited his father in Jilong and told him the government wanted to forcibly acquire the grandparents’ land – at a very low rate of compensation – for redevelopment as an industrial park. In Zhanghua, locals pilloried MP Hong (Xu Jiarong) to improve the compensation rate, and Yang Rumen discovered that Hong was Troublemaker’s father. When the aboriginal boy died, Yang Rumen persuaded Troublemaker to look after the boy’s younger brother and sister, and she later confronted her father over his exploitation of local farmers. In Jan 2002 Taiwan became the 144th member of the World Trade Organisation. Yang Rumen started petitioning the island’s Council of Agriculture for a better deal for farmers and in Nov 2002 a large demonstration was held in Taibei. A year later, frustrated by official roadblocks, Yang Rumen started leaving small rice-seed bombs in Taipei with protest messages on them. He became known as The Rice Bomber, and only after the 17th incident, in Nov 2004, did the incompetent police authorities finally manage to identify him from CCTV.
REVIEW
After her slickly shot but awkwardly scripted mystery-drama Zoom Hunting 猎艳 (2010), and the barely seen drama-romance The Next Magic 下一个奇迹 (2011), Taiwan director Zhuo Li 卓立 raises hopes of reviving political cinema in the island’s movie industry with The Rice Bomber 白米炸弹客. Based on the true story of a simple farmer-turned-protestor – over the government’s lack of support for agriculture, especially after Taiwan’s membership of the WTO in 2002 – the film is best filed under the category Revolutionary (Very) Lite. Despite a promising start, which follows Yang Rumen’s gradual politicisation, the script time and again fails to follow through on its groundwork, preferring to cut away to montages of friendship between the leads (soupily scored by Peyman Yazdanian, Buddha Mountain 观音山, 2010, Love and Bruises 花, 2011) or concentrating on a fictional relationship between the protagonist and a spoiled, rich girl-cum-“revolutionary”.
The subject could have made a fascinating political drama, and writers Hong Hong 鸿鸿 and Jin Dulan 金笃兰 consistently aim barbs (both serious and comic) at governmental cowardice in the face of WTO requirements and police incompetence over tracking down Yang as he places small protest bombs all over Taibei. But the movie fails to generate any tension or political heft as Yang Rumen’s frustration mounts with the authorities’ roadblocks and with business corruption. Zhuo’s films have always come well-packaged, and Bomber, which uses experienced South Korean d.p. Jo Yong-gyu 조요규 | 赵龙奎 (Secret Sunshine 밀양, 2007; Man of Vendetta 파괴된 사나이, 2010; plus several films by director Ryu Seung-wan 류승완 | 柳升完), looks consistently attractive in both town and country on the wide screen. But as a director, Zhuo seems incapable (or unwilling) to take the big leap into genuinely political drama. It’s a genre that Taiwan cinema has lacked for almost two decades, and shows no signs of being revived now as the industry concentrates increasingly on local comedies.
As Yang Rumen, Huang Jianwei 黄健玮 (Yang Yang 阳阳, 2009) is way more handsome than the real-life character and never convinces as an ordinary farmer driven to perform mildly terrorist acts. That’s partly the script’s fault, which never builds him up as an angry young man nor gives him suitable dialogue to work with. As his fictional, “revolutionary” girl friend – in a relationship that seems very platonic – Xie Xinying 谢欣颖, potentially an interesting actress (Make Up 命运化妆师, 2011), is stuck in a role that’s borderline ridiculous. Supporting performances are stronger, including Zhang Shaohuai 张少怀 as Yang’s mentally damaged younger brother, but are weakly incorporated into what little drama there is. At almost two hours, Bomber could easily lose 20 minutes, starting with some of Xie’s scenes and the montages of romping in the sea.
CREDITS
Presented by 1 Production Film (TW), Taipei Postproduction (TW), Arrow Cinematic Group (TW), Ocean Deep Films (TW). Produced by Ocean Deep Films (TW).
Script: Hong Hong, Jin Dulan. Photography: Jo Yong-gyu. Editing: Liao Qingsong, Qin Maisong. Music: Peyman Yazdanian. Art direction: Li Tianjue. Costumes: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Wang Yanbin, Sunit Asvinikul, Zheng Xuzhi [Frank Cheng].
Cast: Huang Jianwei (Yang Rumen), Xie Xinying (Troublemaker), Zhang Shaohuai (Yang Dongcai), Xu Jiarong (Hong, Troublemaker’s father), Wu Fan (Yang Rumen’s father), Lv Fulu (Yang Rumen’s grandfather), Lv Liaobao (Yang Rumen’s grandmother), Yang Pengyu (Sijianzai).
Premiere: Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), 9 Feb 2014.
Release: Taiwan, 4 Apr 2014.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 10 Feb 2014.)