Bends
过界
Hong Kong, 2013, colour, 16:9, 104 mins.
Director: Liu Yunwen 刘韵文 [Flora Lau].
Rating: 5/10.
A nicely shot study of ennui with a thimbleful of content.
STORY
Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, the present day. Hui (Chen Kun), his wife Tingting (Tian Yuan) and their young daughter Haihai (Tu Jiamen) live in a flat. Hui, already a Hong Kong citizen, works across the border in Hong Kong, as a driver for the wealthy Anna Li (Liu Jialing). His wife is already pregnant with their second child and stays in the flat to avoid prying eyes, as she already has Haihai. To get round China’s single-child policy, Hui is planning to smuggle Tingting across the border and have the baby in Hong Kong. However, because of high demand, hospitals have stopped taking patients from the Mainland and Hui can’t reserve a bed without a special hospital letter. He asks an old girlfriend from Shenzhen, Lulu (Che Wanwan), who works as a head nurse at a Hong Kong maternity clinic, to help him out with a hospital letter, but she refuses. Meawhile, Anna, whose businessman husband Leo (Zheng Danrui) hasn’t returned for days, finds her credit cards have been cancelled. Her maid leaves her, and she’s forced to sell off stuff to raise cash. As the time nears for Tingting’s delivery, Hui again tries to persuade Lulu to help him out.
REVIEW
A nicely shot study of ennui with a thimbleful of content, the enigmatically titled Bends 过界 marks a ho-hum feature debut by Hong Kong writer-director Liu Yunwen 刘韵文 [Flora Lau] that’s typical festival product. The movie flip-flops around the “double life” of a Mainland-born chauffeur, Hui, who works by day in Hong Hong for a wealthy socialite and has a pregnant wife across the border in China whom he’s planning to smuggle over to give birth, in order to get around China’s single-child policy. As played by Mainland matinee idol Chen Kun 陈坤, not noted for trenchant performances, Hui is pretty much a blank slate; so, too, in a spot-on but distanced performance by Hong Kong veteran Liu Jialing 刘嘉玲 [Carina Lau], is the socialite, whose life goes into freefall when her wealthy husband suddenly goes AWOL.
Like so many film school-trained directors, Liu simply can’t write dialogue, or drive the film in anything apart from visual terms. She’s chosen her d.p., the noted Christopher Doyle 杜可风, with care, and Doyle serves up some good-looking, discreetly sheeny compositions that are especially good at providing a frame for the socialite’s wealthy but empty lifestyle. But with little going on between her and Chen’s taciturn Hui, the film is light on drama and never makes a convincing connection between two halves of the chauffeur’s existence. Though only in a few scenes, Mainland actress-singer Tian Yuan 田原 (the singer in lesbian drama Butterfly 蝴蝶, 2004; the daughter in Luxury Car 江城夏日, 2006) is more characterful and sympathetic as the chauffeur’s pregnant wife, as is Hong Kong’s Che Wanwan 车婉婉 as an old girlfriend of Hui.
The weird English title is never explained; the Chinese means “Across the Border” or “Crossing the Border/Line”, referring to Hui’s constant shuttling back and forth, and the continuing dividing line in legalities between China and Hong Kong. Discreet references are made to the growing animosity of Hong Kongers towards Mainlanders but it’s never properly developed as a theme.
In the main credits, well-known Hong Kong stylist-editor Zhang Shuping 张叔平 [William Chang] gets a “very special thanks” for unspecified work – reportedly for working on the costuming of Liu and Chen. Another unusual main credit notes the screenplay was developed at the Binger Filmlab, Amsterdam.
CREDITS
Presented by Shadow Puppet Productions (HK), Film Development Fund (HK). Produced by Bends (HK).
Script: Liu Yunwen [Flora Lau]. Photography: Christopher Doyle. Editing: Liu Yunwen [Flora Lau], Alexis dos Santos, Li Wenjun. Music: Patrick Jonsson. Production designer: Cai Huiyan. Costume designer: Tong Yao. Sound: Lu Zhiwei, Yuan Dingye. Visual effects: Ye Guohao.
Cast: Liu Jialing [Carina Lau] (Anna Li), Chen Kun (Hui), Tian Yuan (Tingting, Hui’s wife), Che Wanwan (Lulu), Tu Jiamen (Haihai, Hui’s daughter), Zheng Danrui [Lawrence Cheng] (Leo, Anna Li’s husband).
Premiere: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), 18 May 2013.
Release: Hong Kong, 21 Nov 2013.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 26 May 2013.)