Silent Witness
全民目击
China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.
Director: Fei Xing 非行.
Rating: 9/10.
Superbly crafted crime/courtroom procedural is a game-changer in Mainland genre cinema.
STORY
Fengzhou municipality, northern China, the present day, Monday 28 May. The media are all agog outside the city’s courthouse on the first day of the trial of 20-year-old Lin Mengmeng (Deng Jiajia), accused of murdering her future step-mother, singer Yang Dan (Zhou Weitong). Lin Mengmeng’s millionaire father, Lin Tai (Sun Honglei), is one of the country’s most renowned financial entrepreneurs, with a string of unproven cases against him and a reputation for arrogance. A widower, he first met Yang Dan 17 months earlier and the pair were due to marry. He tells the media that his daughter is innocent. The public prosecutor is Tong Tao (Guo Fucheng), a brilliant lawyer who graduated in 1997 and only handles top cases. Lin Mengmeng’s defence counsel is Zhou Li (Yu Nan), China’s highest-paid lawyer. The charge is that, on the evening of 25 March, Lin Mengmeng, angry over some internet footage three days earlier showing Yang Dan having a one-night stand in a car with an unnamed actor, had an argument with her in their apartment’s underground car park and ended up knocking Yang Dan over with her car. Yang Dan was accidentally killed when she hit her head on a nail in the wall, and Lin Mengmeng drove away. Most of the event was recorded on the car park’s CCTV. What seems an open-and-shut case goes all of Tong Tao’s way as he questions first a female witness, Zhao Juan (Liao Xiaoqin), who had seen Lin Mengmeng drunk in a bar that night, vowing to murder Yang Dan, and then the family’s faithful, long-serving driver, Sun Wei (Zhao Lixin), who had seen Lin Mengmeng leaving the scene in her car. Lin Mengmeng doesn’t deny any of the accusations. Finally, Zhou Li cross-examines Sun Wei and draws a series of surprising revelations from him. But that is only the start of a labyrinthine quest for the truth by both her and Tong Tao over the next two months.
REVIEW
With a script that doesn’t loosen its grip in the whole two hours, a name cast at the top of its game, and an atmospheric production package that’s all in the service of the drama, Silent Witness 全民目击 is superb, mesmerising entertainment purely on a craft level. But on a broader landscape, this second feature by 42-year-old Fei Xing 非行 – pen-name of Anhui-born Li Wenbing 李文兵, a onetime folk-music graduate, guitarist and successful TV drama writer-director – is much more. Quite simply, it’s as much of a game-changer in Mainland cinema as Infernal Affairs was in Hong Kong a decade ago, raising the bar on an existing genre to a new level.
In the case of Witness, it’s the genre of the crime/courtroom procedural, more often seen in China on the small screen than on the big one. Building on a device that he employed in his impressive debut, the genre-bending The Man Behind the Courtyard House 守望者 罪恶迷途 (2011), Fei Xing constructs a script that looks at a seemingly open-and-shut case from four different perspectives, showing events first from an “objective” stance and then literally rewinding the film at the 25, 60 and 93-minute marks to recap them from the point-of-view of the three protagonists (the public prosecutor, the defence lawyer, the father of the accused). The segments, however, aren’t so cut-and dried: as in Courtyard the movie itself develops alongside these rewinds, which not only show some of the same events from another viewpoint but also lead the drama in more complex directions.
It’s hard to describe the movie in any detail without giving the game away on the multiple twists which, as in Courtyard, aren’t simply gratuitous but evolve naturally from the movie’s characters and psychology. Suffice it to say that the film opens with the trial of a millionaire’s daughter for the murder of her future step-mother, pulls its first big surprise in a powerful courtroom scene around the 20-minute mark, and then builds layer upon layer of previously hidden information over the next hour. Then, just when it seems all is said and down, the movie pulls its biggest set of twists, not only revealing a totally unexpected discovery that shakes the foundations of everything the audience has been led to believe but also engendering sympathy for the least likeable character and then elevating the tale into one of Chinese myth and personal redemption. Literally until the final minute the story is not over.
Fei Xing has assembled an almost dream cast, with smaller roles as well selected as the leading ones. As the millionaire financier – whose character taps directly directly into the hot-button issue in China of nouveau-riche privilege and corruption – Sun Honglei 孙红雷 shows the same skill at minimalist emotion that he’s brought to a variety of roles, from rom-coms (I Do 我愿意, 2012) to crime dramas (Drug War 毒战, 2012; Lethal Hostage 边境风云, 2012) to costume pieces (Seven Swords 七剑, 2005; A Simple Noodle Story 三枪拍案惊奇, 2009). Sun’s is the role that starts by giving the least but ends up giving the most, though he’s run a close second by actress Yu Nan 余男 (another minimalist performer, who can do everything from drama to action roles) as the daughter’s top defence lawyer.
Despite a hairdo that distractingly hangs over half her face, Yu (Tuya’s Marriage 图雅的婚事, 2006; Wind Blast 西风烈, 2010; BeLoved 亲•爱, 2013) initially lights up the screen in a tour-de-force, seven-minute cross-examination early in the movie – skilfully counter-played by Zhao Lixin 赵立新 as the hapless witness in the box – and returns later to drive the movie to its conclusion, including the breathtaking discovery of a large piece of evidence miles from the scene of the crime. Between the two, Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok] (the sole Hong Kong actor in the movie) is the least impressive, looking somewhat out of place as he has in other Mainland productions and here too much one-note intense. At a basic level, however, he gets the job done – and holds his own against Sun in some powerfully written sequences.
Smaller roles are equally well cast, with Deng Jiajia 邓家佳 (aka “little Zhou Xun”, Mysterious Island 2 惊魂2, 2013) okay as the accused, versatile Ni Hongjie 倪虹洁 (the tomboy constable in My Own Swordsman 武林外传, 2011; ditzy secretary in One Night Surprise 一夜惊喜, 2013) here smouldering as an unrepentant gold-digger, and Tong Liya 佟丽娅 (the suicidal girlfriend in So Young 致我们终将逝去的青春, 2013) bringing some uncomplicated freshness to the tangled goings-on as the wife of Guo’s prosecutor.
It’s the ensemble of these performances (and even smaller ones) that helps give real dramatic heft to what otherwise might just have been just a well-written, cleverly-constructed genre movie, full of the usual coincidences, moments of sudden relevation and sequences of engineered suspense. Most remarkably, in a genre that US cinema has made its own (and passed on, relatively unchanged, to Japan and South Korea in Asia), Witness has a totally Chinese feel in its emotions, pacing and underlying philosophy.
Technical contributions are classy, from the textured interior lighting of Zhang Yimou’s 张艺谋 regular d.p. Zhao Xiaoding 赵小丁 to the editing by Su Lifeng 苏立峰 (Courtyard) and Hong Kong veteran Kuang Zhiliang 邝志良 that’s as sharp as a razor when required to drive the drama. The Chinese title literally means “Universal Witness”. The film’s fictional setting of Fengzhou city is a clever combination of visual effects and locations mainly in Tianjin.
CREDITS
Presented by Shenzhen 21st Century Wink Film & Media (CN), Tik Films (CN), Shanghai Yinrun Media & Advertising (CN). Produced by Tik Films (CN), New Power Film & TV (CN), Shanghai Yinrun Media & Advertising (CN).
Script: Fei Xing. Photography: Zhao Xiaoding. Editing: Su Lifeng, Kuang Zhiliang. Music: Yang Zhuoxin. Theme song music: Jin Peida [Peter Kam]. Lyrics: Xiaomei. Vocals: Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok]. Production design: Chen Siqin. Art direction: Xu Duo, Guo Mengxiao. Costumes: Bai Yongyi. Sound: Zhou Lei, Du Duzhi, Chen Yan. Action: He Jun. Special effects: Xu Jian. Visual effects: Li Ang. Executive director: Lv Ying.
Cast: Sun Honglei (Lin Tai), Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Tong Tao), Yu Nan (Zhou Li), Deng Jiajia (Lin Mengmeng), Zhao Lixin (Sun Wei, the driver), Ni Hongjie (Su Hong, his wife), Chen Sicheng (Chen, TV director), Tong Liya (Tong Tao’s wife), Zhou Weitong (Yang Dan), Ding Zishuo (Meizi), Li Zonglei (Li Jie), Tan Songyun (Gao Lingling), Liu Changde (Qiangzi), Fu Chuanjie (Chen Wei), Liao Xiaoqin (Zhao Juan, witness in the bar), Gao Dawei (head judge), Yuan Yulong (deputy judge), Wang Jianjun (Old Zhao), Li You (Xiao Wu), Zhao Changzhou (Big Liu), Zhao Yanqiao (female TV reporter), Ma Zhiyu (male TV reporter), Bai Jinbo (web reporter), Zhang Xu, Chen Xi (Lin Tai’s assistants), He Qiang (car park attendant), Gao Yu (police witness), Zhang Yu (outside broadcast unit assistant), Zhang Tianjiao (female newscaster), Shu Yao (Lin Mengmeng’s teacher), Liu Zhengliang (old prosecutor), Li Baozhen (Sun Wei’s mother), Wang Qiwen (Sun Wei’s daughter), Liu Xiaowan (Yang Dan’s stand-in), Liu Yaxin (Lin Mengmeng’s stand-in).
Release: China, 13 Sep 2013.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 30 Sep 2103.)