Shallow
出拳吧妈妈
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Tang Xiaobai 唐晓白.
Rating: 6/10.
Despite a few shortcomings in the script, under-rated Mainland actress Tan Zhuo throws herself into the role of a boxer who must fight to retrieve her young son.
STORY
Tianhai city, somewhere in coastal northern China, winter. Police come to the flat where Bai Yang (Tan Zhuo) lives with her parents. Having been allowed one year bail to breast-feed her baby son Xiaohui, she is escorted away to serve a five-year term in prison. (A professional boxer with a temper, she had lost a fight against Xu Jia’nan [Zhao Shimeng] in a qualifying round of the Asian Games and, after blaming her trainer [Wei Yibo] in a furious row, had got drunk, slept with a man [Zhao Bingrui] and later found she was pregnant. Seeing him with another woman one night, she had attacked him with a broken bottle.) Bai Yang leaves Xiaohui with her elder sister Bai Tong (Tian Hairong). Five years later she’s recently been released from prison and is just about scraping a living unloading fish off boats to sell on the quay. When penniless boxing-gym owner Shen Hao (Tian Yu) comes by and gets into a fight over a box of cod earmarked for local gangster Hu (Chen Minghao), the fish stall Bai Yang is minding gets damaged and she is blamed by her boss (Lu Cong). Impulsively, she steals his cash and buys a cake for her son’s birthday, delivering it unannounced to him at Bai Tong’s flat. The boy does not even know she is, and Bai Tong is angry as she’d agreed to hand Xiaohui (Guo Tangwei) back to her when she was well and settled. Bai Yang leaves in tears. After seeing an advert for a boxing competition worth RMB2 million, she tries to enrol but is told she must first be a member of a boxing club. Seeing a flyer for Shen Hao’s gym, she eventually persuades him to take her on and train her, as long as she can lose about 10 kilos in a week. As it’s summertime, she just about manages to sweat it off. Shen Hao has 30 days to get her into shape again, and they row a lot. In the audience Bai Yang sees her nemesis, Xu Jia’nan, who became famous after winning in the Asian Games that year. Seeing the arrogant Xu Jia’nan’s face, she becomes fired up and unexpectedly KO’s her opponent, Devil Girl (Liu Chang), in the third round. Afterwards, in front of the press, Xu Jia’nan insults Bai Yang; but Bai Yang says she’ll come back and beat her one day. Meanwhile, Xiaohui follows his mother on TV as she becomes a local heroine, and one day Shen Hao helps mother and son to spend a day by the sea together. But Xu Jia’nan feels threatened by Bai Yang’s success and forces her to throw her next fight and split with Shen Hao. At the same time Bai Tong demands she signs an agreement letting her and her husband (Guo Weilun) officially foster Xiaohui, as they’re about to move down south to Macau.
REVIEW
A female boxer returns to the ring to help reclaim her young son in Shallow 出拳吧妈妈, a terrific platform for under-rated Mainland actress Tan Zhuo 谭卓 who creates some involving screen chemistry with actor Tian Yu 田雨 as her equally headstrong trainer. Writer-director Tang Xiaobai 唐晓白 has never the most productive of film-makers – this is only her fourth feature in two decades – but she’s already traversed a wide range of styles, from the semi-impressionistic Conjugation 动词变位 (2001), through the way over-arty Perfect Life 完美生活 (2008), to finally finding her feet with All Apologies 爱的替身 (2012), an affecting story of surrogate motherhood. Shallow, which also reunites her with Hong Kong d.p. Li Yaohui 黎耀辉 [Lai Yiu-fai] and South Korean editor Baek Seung-hun 백승훈 | 白承勋, is her most accessible and “mainstream” to date, though it managed only a tiny RMB4 million on release this spring, almost a year after its gala screening at the Shanghai festival.
Between times, Tang, now in her early 50s, has kept her hand in with the 2014 TVD 我的博士老公 (literally, “My Old Man the PhD”), a rom-com starring Sha Yi 沙溢, Liang Jing 梁静 and Tian, and an Australian co-production, the comedy 玩命嫁期 (“Life-Threatening Marriageday”), that appears to have never gone into production. Shallow is her first feature to get normal distribution in the Mainland.
Changchun-born Tan, 38, who rarely gets the leading roles she deserves, impresses from the outset as, in the first five minutes, the audience learns her character’s backstory of a hot-blooded boxer who got five years in prison for wounding a man who made her pregnant. She was forced to hand her baby boy over to her elder sister while she served time. Now, she’s out, working in a rotten job in a quayside fish market, and dreams of putting her life back in order so she can retrieve her young son. She spots an opportunity in a boxing competition with big prize money; but first she has to find a gym and get back into shape. Enter a driven but dodgy ex-boxer (Tian) who needs clients for his seedy gym.
Almost unrecognisable from her roles in films like Mr. Tree Hello! 树先生 (2011), The Mahjong Box 三缺一 (2016) or Dying to Survive 我不是药神 (2018), Tan throws herself into the role of the driven pugilist, balancing anger and humility, determination and weakness, in a rounded portrait that manages to remain sympathetic. An actor whose roots are in theatre, Tian, 46, is usually seen in droll supporting roles but here is a good match for Tan as the tough, equally irascible trainer. The two carry the film between them, but are surrounded by a strong raft of characters lead by TV actress Tian Hairong 田海蓉, 46, as the sister who’s looking after the kid and newcomer Zhao Shimeng 赵诗朦, 30, as the lead’s boxing nemesis (all glowering villainy).
Tan had three doubles for some of her fight scenes, but thanks to the realistic staging, shooting and editing, as well as excellent special make-up, it’s not obvious in any way. The tendency towards realistic settings, shown in all of Tang’s previous features, brings alive the fictional coastal town – portrayed warts-and-all by Li’s widescreen camera – that’s not far from Beijing. Despite all that, and an impressive first hour, the basic story is fairly generic, with the expected finale between the heroine and her nemesis in the ring and a rather emotionally mushy climax involving the heroine’s son and the inspirational power of a mother’s love. Those weaknesses in the script (lead written by Huang Wei 黄苇, rom-com Holding Love HOLD住爱, 2012) combine to knock a point off an otherwise 7/10 movie. The Chinese title literally means “Fists Up, Mum”; the meaning of the English one is anybody’s guess.
CREDITS
Presented by Gobi Pictures (Suzhou) (CN), Xinzang Huaxia Tianshan Cinema Circuit (CN), Polyfilm Investment (CN), Saints Entertainment (CN), Shenzhen All Stars Pictures (CN), Horgos Yuyue Culture Communication (CN), Shanghai E Magine Pictures (CN). Produced by Public Media (Beijing) (CN), Saints Entertainment (CN), Xinzang Gobi Pictures (CN).
Script: Huang Wei, Wu Bo, Shen Rong, Tang Xiaobai. Photography: Li Yaohui [Lai Yiu-fai]. Editing: Baek Seung-hun. Music direction: Jeong Jae-hwan. Art direction: Yu Zhaofeng. Styling: Zhang Chuhan. Sound: Liu Peng, Nie Jirong. Action: Li Hao. Visual effects: Guo Weilun. Boxing advice: Li Yang. Boxing direction: Zhi Daoqiang, Liu Chang. Additional shooting: Liu Peng (executive direction), Wang Weihua (photography), Yu Zhaofeng (art direction), Liu Chang (boxing direction).
Cast: Tan Zhuo (Bai Yang), Tian Yu (Shen Hao), Tian Hairong (Bai Tong, Bai Yang’s elder sister), Chen Minghao (Hu, local gangster), Zhao Bingrui (Bai Yang’s lover), Zhao Shimeng (Xu Jia’nan), Guo Tangwei (Xiaohui, Bai Yang’s young son), Wei Zhongkai (Da Pang), Li Junmo (Dongzi), Sun Zhenglin (Xu Jia’an’s manager), Liu Chang (Mogui Nvhai/Devil Girl), Huang Wensi (Hei Jingang/Black King Kong), Lu Cong (Bai Yang’s boss in fish market), Zhao Pengming (Bai Yang’s boss at restaurant), Guo Weilun (Bai Tong’s husband), Wei Yibo (Bai Yang’s former trainer), Liu Fengqi (Fourth Uncle, old seller in fish market).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (SIFF Gala), 12 Jun 2021.
Release: China, 30 Apr 2022.