Tiger Wolf Rabbit

浴火之路

China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 125 mins.

Director: Wubai 五百 [Guo Shubo 郭书博].

Rating: 7/10.

Tough desert drama with mysterious characters has a strong cast and looks good, though the script is sometimes too twisty for its own good.

STORY

Somewhere in China, 1996. Imprisoned on a charge of blackmail, in collusion with a woman from the city of Lancheng, Cui Dalu (Xiao Yang) is released from prison after three years. After seemingly attempting suicide on a railway line, he’s approached by a man (Liu Ye) who offers him money to find a woman. However, while discussing things over lunch, Cui Dalu makes off with the man’s car and drives to his home city of Yicheng. (Five years earlier in Lancheng, while going to meet a woman known as Wanru, Cui Dalu had lost his young son, Cui Xiaolang [Guo Junwei], who was kidnapped on the street by a gang in a white van.) In Yicheng, an old friend, Hou (Pan Binlong), gives Cui Dalu a sketch of an unnamed human trafficker in Kuncheng who may have been responsible for the abduction of Cui Xiaolang. Cui Dalu visits another old friend, Wu San’er (Wang Xun), who runs the Asian Disco nightclub and first introduced him to Wanru, aka Li Hongying (Zhao Liying), 35. Wu San’er says she was hopeless as an employee, but he still uses her as a cleaner so she can work off a RMB50,000 debt to him. She gives a cautious welcome to Cui Dalu, who still owes her RMB30,000 from years back. In her dingy flat, Cui Dalu and Li Hongying sexually blackmail a rich sugar-daddy of hers in order to pay off her debt to Wu San’er. But then the man whose car Cui Dalu stole tracks him down in Li Hongying’s flat. His name is Zhao Zishan, from Lancheng, and he asks Li Hongying whether she knows a man called Lu Yong’an who has disappeared from that city. He offers her money to find him. Suddenly the blackmailed sugar-daddy arrives with some thugs to take revenge on Cui Dalu and Li Hongying. Zhao Zishan, who is a very skilled fighter, beats them all up; but meanwhile Cui Dalu and Zhao Liying flee. He asks her to travel with him to Kuncheng, to find the human trafficker, and at the last moment she joins him on the coach. En route, Zhao Zishan catches up with them, and again offers Li Hongying RMB50,000 to find Lu Yong’an, plus a further RMB100,000 when she does. The three of them end up travelling together in a car, constantly fighting and arguing. At night they get lost in a hilly wasteland, but are given some refreshment by locals. (Five years earlier in Lancheng, Cui Dalu and Li Hongying had first met when he was looking for his son. Depressed, she had tried to commit suicide but he had saved her.) Cui Dalu and Zhao Zishan start to warm to each other, and the latter says he recognises the drawing of the human trafficker’s face. The three arrive in the semi-tropical town of Kuncheng, where Cui Dalu finds a cap in the street that is like the one his son wore. Li Hongying is then contacted by Lu Yong’an (Wu Xiaoliang), with whom she turns out to have a close connection. And Lu Yong’an works for a human trafficker known as Beardy Quick-Hands (Feng Delun), whom both Cui Dalu and Zhao Zishan are anxious to meet.

REVIEW

A throwback to tough desert dramas like Wind Blast 西风烈 (2010) or No Man’s Land 无人区 (2013), with tight-lipped characters wandering around with their own secret agendas, Tiger Wolf Rabbit 浴火之路 provides strong roles for its three leads and a generally involving storyline that only starts to drag a little in its second half. It’s the second release this year by director-producer Guo Shubo 郭书博, 44, better known under his pen name Wubai 五百 (“Five Hundred”), who is more identified with TV drama series but is always worth a look when he comes up with a movie (The Old Cinderella 脱轨时代, 2014; The Big Shot “大”人物, 2019). Like his previous release, anti-corruption drama Walk the Line 扫黑 决不放弃(2024), TWR also stars sometime comedian Xiao Yang 肖央 and was also shot in the southern province of Yunnan. Only Wubai’s fourth theatrical feature, it’s been his biggest success so far, a National Day release that took RMB462 million, putting it in second place well behind The Volunteers: To The War 2 志愿军 第二部：存亡之战 (RMB1.20 billion; dir. Chen Kaige 陈凯歌) but ahead of big-budget monster movie Bureau 749 (RMB376 million; dir. Lu Chuan 陆川).

Strikingly shot in widesceen by d.p. Du Jie 杜杰, who also did Wind Blast and No Man’s Land, the film has an often wild, edgy score by Hu Xiao’ou 胡小鸥 that recalls Italian composer Ennio Morricone and mirrors the wry, rough humour of the whole thing, set in a no man’s land of its own in which the towns have names like Lancheng, Yicheng and Kuncheng. Though the film’s Chinese title literally means “(The) Road Bathed in Fire”, the English one centres on the three protagonists, each with their own agenda involving a trafficked child. Xiao plays the central one, Cui Dalu (“Wolf”), who, as soon as he’s released from prison, is approached by a mystery man, later identified as Zhao Zishan (“Tiger”), who tries to hire him to find a woman. Though he doesn’t tell Zhao Zishan, Cui Dalu is actually on his way to see her, as she used to be his partner-in-crime. Cui Dalu’s main mission is to find his young son who was kidnapped off the street five years ago. Meanwhile, Li Hongying (“Rabbit”) also has a secret mission of her own, as does Zhao Zishan who quickly tracks them down. The argumentative trio become enforced travelling companions as they set off across the desert to track down various seedy criminals in the fictional town of Kuncheng.

Xiao, 44, has a very different role from his tricky cop in Walk the Line, though his tough, bruised character of Cui Dalu, who convincingly looks like a hardened con, still has flecks of comedy. That’s in line with the film’s very black humour, also seen in the growly, long-haired mystery man Zhao Zishan, played by Liu Ye 刘烨, 46, as well as their female companion, the equally determined Li Hongying, in which role actress-singer Zhao Liying 赵丽颖, 37 – so good as the deaf-mute wife in Article 20 第二十条 (2024) – more than holds her own amid all the ruggedness. It’s a relatively rare sighting of Liu, who nowadays isn’t the major screen presence he used to be, though his playing of the master-fighter mystery man here makes one wish he were. Other performances are all flavoursome, including a rare film appearance by an unrecognisable Feng Delun 冯德伦 [Stephen Fung], now 50, as a super-sleazy trafficker. As in Walk the Line, comedian Wang Xun 王迅 and actress Lin Lexuan 林乐炫 pop up in small roles, as a cynical old pal of Cui Dalu and a policewoman on the trail of the villains.

One of the problems with the film is that Xiao’s character is a deeply annoying one who’s pathologically contrary and therefore difficult to become involved with, especially in the first half. Also the screenplay by Shang Ke 尚可 – pen name of Heilongjiang-born writer Fan Haoran 范浩然, 55, who was one of the six writers on No Man’s Land – is much too plot-heavy and over-full with twists and betrayals, the combined effect of which is to drag the film down in its second half. At least the self-obsessed characters do reach some kind of redemption, which helps to give shape to the whole yarn, despite its length. And the action, though very physical, doesn’t wallow in it.

According to the credits, Shang Ke’s screenplay was adapted from his original script 虎狼之路 (literally, “Tiger Wolf Road”). The film was shot in Yunnan province, in and around Kunming city during Feb-Apr 2023, over 70 days. Titles at the end clearly align it with China’s National Action Plan Against Human Trafficking (2021-30).

CREDITS

Presented by Sichuan Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Entertainment (CN), China Film (CN), Changying Shidai Communication (CN), Novoland International Cultural Communication (CN), Beijing Infinite Film (CN), Horgos Excuse Me Pictures (CN), Beijing Dajiang Dongqu Culture Commnication (CN), Zhejiang Film & TV (Group) (CN), Shiliu Pictures (CN), Tianjin Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Beijing Weimeng Internet Technology (CN), Beijing Lian Ray Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Infinite Film (CN).

Script: Shang Ke. Photography: Du Jie. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai], Du Guangwei. Editing advice: Li Nanyi. Music: Hu Xiao’ou. Art direction: Zheng Chen. Costumes: Jing Nan. Styling: Zheng Chen. Sound: Xu Duo, Fu Kang. Action: Li Yinghui. Car stunts: An Bo. Visual effects: Peng Ke, Ding Dawei. Executive direction: Lin Zichen.

Cast: Xiao Yang (Cui Dalu), Zhao Liying (Li Hongying), Liu Ye (Zhao Zishan), Feng Delun [Stephen Fung] (Kuaishou Huzi/Beardy Quick-Hands), Pan Binlong (Hou), Wang Xun (Wu San’er), Chen Minghao (Hao), Xu Dongdong (tractor-factory girl), Yin Xiaotian (wedding MC), Wu Xiaoliang (Lu Yong’an), Wang Hongwei (Jin Shigui/Jin Renshan), Song Ningfeng (Qiao Wu, Jin Shigui’s godson), Zhang Baiqiao (Jin Matang, Jin Shigui’s retarded son), Ailiya (Jin Shigui’s wife), Lin Lexuan (Xiaoyu, policewoman), Cai Mingxuan (Xiaoyezi, Li Hongying’s daughter), Baduo (cripple), Jiu Kong (Da Erzi), Guo Junwei (Cui Xiaolang/Wolfie).

Release: China, 1 Oct 2024.