Revival

回廊亭

China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.

Director: Lai Mukuan 来牧宽.

Rating: 4/10.

Atmospheric, well-cast whodunit, set in a remote villa, is severely unbalanced by an over-twisty final act.

STORY

Houshan Hills, Haidong municipality, somewhere in southern China, the present day. Following the sudden death of billionaire businessman Gao Jin at the age of 62, lawyer Zhou Yang (Ren Suxi) arrives at the family’s remote mansion in the Houshan hills that is known as the Corridor Pavilion 回廊亭. His empire, the Gao Group, is actually facing financial collapse and his three heirs aren’t intrerested in taking over its running. Zhou Yuang is arriving a day before the official reading of the will as the law firm has just received a diary and a sealed envelope that may affect its implementation. The diary was written by Ye Tong, who had been instructed by Gao Jin to find a son, Du Yu, whom he never knew until recently that he had but was actually first in line among his heirs. Ye Tong had found Du Yu. But on the day – a year ago – when she brought him to Corridor Pavilion, he was killed by a deliberate fire in the room he was put in (No. 9); Ye Tong had nearly burned to death trying to rescue him, and was sent to the family’s private hospital to recover; but she had then committed suicide. She had left evidence of the killer’s identity in a sealed envelope. At a meeting of the main family family members – No. 2 brother Gao Shan (Li Chuanying), his wife Ji Dongmei (Hu Ke), and No. 3 brother Gao Zhi (Lu Fangsheng) – Zhou Yang asks if they want her to open the envelope, and all look nervous and say no. Before going to sleep, Zhou Yang trains a small spy-camera on the diary and envelope. Next morning, while walking by the garden’s ornamental pond, she finds the body of Cheng Xuan (Tang Min), the physically abused fiancee of Gao Shan’s drug-addicted son, Gao Jian (WangGongliang). Zhou Yang says she has camera proof that Cheng Xuan stole the envelope during the night; but it’s not on her body now. Everyone panics when a local policeman, Chen Song (Wu Haochen), unexpectedly arrives for a routine fire inspection; but they manage to conceal the body while the family’s veteran housekeeper, Lin Zhenhui (Liu Mintao), diverts his attention. Appalled by their behaviour, Zhou Yang says she intends to leave and send another lawyer to take her place, but Gao Shan manages to persuade her to stay. She then reads to all of them, except Gao Jian who’s resting in his room, the whole diary. (Ye Tong explains how she had eventually found Du Yu, managed to take a DNA sample, and had then found herself falling for him. On the same day she’d brought him to the Corridor Pavilion, he had been murdered by a fire in his room, no. 9, that almost killed her as well.) Afterwards, Zhou Yang wonders aloud why Cheng Xuan stole the envelope from her room, as she seemingly had no connection with the Gao family drama. But then Gao Shan tells Zhou Yang that he saw Cheng Xuan entering Gao Zhi’s room that night with the envelope in her hand.

REVIEW

Some stylish direction and visuals, plus good performances – especially by actress Ren Suxi 任素汐, more often seen in light comedy (A Cool Fish 无名之辈, 2018; Almost a Comedy 半个喜剧, 2019; Miss Mom 寻汉计, 2021) – raise hopes that Revival 回廊亭 is going to be an above-average whodunit that relies on psychological drama in a confined setting. Alas, the build-up of the first hour is dissipated by a final act that piles twist upon twist and barely makes sense, as well as a double coda that ends the whole thing on a whimper. Maybe because it’s adapted from a novel (see left) by Japanese crime writer Higashino Keigo 东野圭吾 (The Devotion of Suspect X 嫌疑人X的献身, 2017; Namiya 解忧杂货店, 2017), who’s very popular in China, it managed to hawl in RMB205 million, a very solid amount for such a modest movie. Despite its questionable screenplay, Revival does at least confirm director Lai Mukuan 来牧宽, in his first major theatrical feature, as an accomplished technician.

Lai graduated in direction from Beijing Film Academy in 1996 and subsequently worked on commercials inbetween switching over to films and TV. Under the pseudonym Lai He 来赫, he’s worked in all forms, from theatrical movies (The Attack 致命追击, 2009) and online films (costume drama 监狱疯云, 2016; police drama 暴走刑警, 2017) to TVD series (Police Captain 刑警队长, 2015) and online series (Detective Chinatown 唐人街探案, 2020). Revival is his first theatrical release under his real name.

Higashino’s 1991 novel, The Murder in Kairotei 回廊亭杀人事件, was already adapted into a 2011 Japanese TV movie, starring actress Tokiwa Takako 常盘贵子 and actor Tanaka Kei 田中圭, and directed by Yamamoto Takeyoshi 山本刚义 (see left). The first Chinese version was a 12-part Mainland web drama, broadcast in summer 2022, under the Chinese title 回廊亭, aka Kairoutei satsujinjiken [a transliteration of the novel’s Japanese title] or The Murder in Kairoutei, starring Deng Jiajia 邓家佳 and actor Zhang Xincheng 张新成, and directed by Li Yatao 李雅弢 (see left, below) Despite its lead writer, Zhang Shidong 张仕栋, also being on the team of the movie, the two are hardly comparable. In the film, most of the protagonists’ names are different and the action centres just on a couple of days after the death of a well-known tycoon, as his will is about to be read. Apart from a few flashbacks, most of the back story is eliminated; in the web drama, the back story takes up most of the running time, with the events shown in the film only reached in the final couple of episodes.

Revival begins with the death of tycoon Gao Jin being announced on the radio as a poe-faced lawyer, Zhou Yang (Ren), drives up into the hills to the Gao family’s remote luxury villa, known as the Corridor Pavilion 回廊亭. Gao Jin’s two younger brothers, plus the wife and son of the elder one, are waiting there, along with the son’s fiancee and the villa’s longtime housekeeper. Zhou Yang’s big surprise for them is that Gao Jin’s will may be difficult to implement, as her law firm has just come into possession of a diary relating to the death, a year ago in a fire in the same villa, of a son whom Gao Jin only recently discovered he had. She also has a sealed letter by the diary writer that contains evidence about the person who murdered the son. When she asks the family if they want her to open the letter, they all look nervous and say no. But next morning the son’s fiancee, who seemingly has nothing to do with the family’s dramas, is found floating in the villa’s pond.

The first hour motors along in a satisfyingly Agatha Christie-like way, with the family members gathered together with the lawyer in a remote setting and all looking guilty of something. Ren successfully manages to downplay her comic side, contributing a remarkably subtle performance among the more theatrical family members. As the elder of the two surviving brothers, Li Chuanying 李传缨 looks the most guilty and cupidinous, while Hu Ke 胡可 is also notable as his bossy wife, Wang Gongliang 王宫良 brittle as their drug-addicted son, and singer-actress Tang Min 汤敏 (Almost a Comedy) nervous as his abused fiancee. The always excellent Liu Mintao 刘敏涛 (The Unexpected 原祸, 2016; For the Memory Never Forgotten 黑蝴蝶, 2017; Let Life Be Beautiful 再见吧！少年, 2020) slides gracefully around in the background as the unflappable housekeeper.

The precision photography of the villa’s clean, modern lines by new name Li You 李优 is a big help in maintaining the coolly threatening atmosphere created by Lai’s direction and his able cast. A comic section, set to baroque music, as the family tries to hide the fiancee’s body from a visiting policeman, works as light relief rather than bending the drama out of shape. More’s the pity, then, that all the careful build-up is destroyed by the final half-hour, as the viewer is overwhelmed by revelations that only barely make sense and the lack of earlier backgrounding becomes noticeable. With the identity of the killer revealed around the hour mark, the final act is a tension-less game of catch-up.

Though the setting is fictional, the film was shot in Sichuan province, southwest China, using a villa on the Daoist mountain of Qingcheng, in Dujiangyan municipality.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing TM Pictures (CN), Dongyang Up Pictures (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), CFC Pictures (CN), Tianjin TM Pictures (CN), Sichuan Xingkong Film & TV Culture Media (CN). Produced by Beijing TM Pictures (CN).

Script: Wen Ning, Xu Luyang, Zhang Shidong, Lai Mukuan. Novel: Higashino Keigo. Photography: Li You. Editing: Fan Zhaoshuo. Music: Shen Bi’ang [Björn Shen], Goto Yuri. Music supervision: Yu Fei. Art direction: Wang Yue. Styling: Lv Fengshan. Costumes: Lu Qingqing. Sound: Li Tao. Visual effects: Li Zhiyong, Chi Zongwang (Bud Vision, LinkFX). Executive direction: Du Sijun, Guan Da.

Cast: Ren Suxi (Zhou Yang), Liu Mintao (Lin Zhenhui), Li Chuanying (Gao Shan, no. 2 brother), Lu Fangsheng (Gao Zhi, no. 3 brother), Hou Wenyuan (Du Yu), Tang Min (Cheng Xuan), Wang Gongliang (Gao Jian, Gao Shan’s son), Ming Xing (Ye Tong), Hu Ke (Ji Dongmei, Gao Shan’s wife), Wu Haochen (Chen Song, policeman), Zhang Junyi (Liu, police captain).

Release: China, 10 Mar 2023.