Paradise in Service
军中乐园
Taiwan/China, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 133 mins.
Director: Niu Chengze 钮承泽 [Doze Niu].
Rating: 7/10.
Ambitious period drama is okay for what it is but misses the big picture.
STORY
Jinmen island, 1969. Luo Baotai (Ruan Jingtian) arrives for his three-year national service on the Taiwan-controlled island, 1.8 kilometres off the coast of Fujian province, China. He is selected by Zhang Yongshan (Chen Jianbin), a sergeant-major, to be part of the 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion’s elite Sea Dragons Special Force, and gets to know Zhang Yongshan – who is originally from peasant stock in Shandong province, China, and cannot understand the local Hokkien dialect or read or write Chinese – by interpreting for him when he pawns a watch in town. Luo Baotai, however, has a fear of water, so Zhang Yongshan arranges, via his friend Yu (Chen Yiwen), a colonel who is from the same Shandong hometown, for Luo Baotai to be transferred to help run the military brothel, known as Unit 831 (aka Special Teahouse or Military Paradise 军中乐园), under its director Zhou Jingwu (Tuo Yiran). Luo Baotai resolves not to sleep with any of the girls, as he is saving himself for his girlfriend back home, Shufen. One day he sees his friend and fellow conscript Zhong Huaxing (Wang Bojie) being forced to use the brothel; Zhong Huaxing tells Luo Baotai he’s been assigned to the Supply Unit, where he’s stuck in damp tunnels all day and is bullied by the other soldiers. Luo Baotai then sees Zhang Yongshan using 831, where his favourite girl is No. 8, Jiao (Chen Yihan). Later, Zhang Yongshan tells Luo Baotai how, as a young man, he was forced to join the Nationalist Army and has not seen his hometown or mother since leaving the Mainland 20 years ago. Luo Baotai offers to write letters home for him, claiming his father has a friend in Japan who can re-direct mail to China. Luo Baotai forms a friendship with girl No. 7, Nini (Wan Qian), who teaches him an American song on her guitar. Meanwhile, Zhong Huaxing has become attached to No. 16, aboriginal Shasha (Lei Jiexi); unable to stand the bullying by his fellow soldiers any more, Zhong Huaxing deserts and swims the channel to the Mainland with Shasha. Meanwhile, Luo Baotai, while accompanying Nini on a trip to the town’s beauty salon, discovers she has a small son and is in 831 to work off part of a prison sentence. Jiao tells him that Nini is “a husband-killer”. Jiao herself has amassed a large amount of money and jewellery by cleverly exploiting her regular clients’ liking for her. Zhang Yongshan has fallen hopelessly for her and, after attending the wedding of his friend Yu, decides to propose to Jiao, leave the army and set up a dumplings restaurant on Taiwan. But then Luo Baotai tells him the truth about her.
REVIEW
An ambitious, multi-character drama set among Taiwan’s “front-line” military almost 50 years ago, Paradise in Service 军中乐园 is a nicely packaged and generally well-played movie, as far as it goes. But it could have been – and itself raises the hope – of being much, much more, perhaps the first politically mature examination by Taiwan’s current film-making generation of the island’s complicated relationship with mainland China. Actor-turned-director Niu Chengze 钮承泽 [Doze Niu], 44, is still one of Taiwan’s few high-profile film-makers to look beyond the industry’s insularity – both in the scale of his films and in his attitude towards China – and he demands respect for that. But like his hoodlum mini-epic Monga 艋舺 (2010) and multi-character rom-com Love 爱 (2012), the script (again by regular writer Zeng Liting 曾莉婷) doesn’t measure up to its early promise.
The time is 1969 and the setting Jinmen (aka Kinmen/Quemoy), a KMT-occupied island just off the coast of China that is “the very first line of defence [against Communist invasion]”; with the Cultural Revolution in full swing on the Mainland, tensions between the two sides are still running high, with regular leaflet drops and much propagandistic bravado on both sides. Over a blank screen, the film opens with some highly-charged text: “We were once ardent believers, until we discovered it was nothing but lies. Much later we understood that this was, in fact, our fate.” In a modern era in which international sabre-rattling is still rife, the movie promises to be a timely metaphor.
As new army recruit Luo Baotai – whose given name means “protect Taiwan” – arrives to join the 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion, the film looks set to become an examination of the island’s political past and anti-communist founding ethic, from a 21st-century perspective. In reality, however, as Luo Baotai is soon transferred from an elite special force to a cushier job in the island’s military brothel, Paradise gradually morphs into a fairly standard, period coming-of-age story.
On that level, it’s certainly OK, with a rich array of characters, strong performances that seamlessly blend Taiwan and some Mainland actors, and a convincing feel for period in the production design by Huang Meiqing 黄美清 (Monga; Love) and the natural looking costumes. But time and again Zeng’s script flirts with issues – bullying in the military, older characters’ belief in still “recovering the Mainland” and returning home one day, the separation between Mainland-born and local-born generations, lingering regional and hometown ties, and so on – only to let them slip out of focus as a more generic coming-to-maturity story takes precedence. Not for the first time – as in the recent The Rice Bomber 白米炸弹客 (2014) – the current generation of Taiwan film-makers still doesn’t seem ready to make adult, politically-engaged cinema.
Instead, Zeng’s script becomes the story of a male virgin in a brothel – the officially sanctioned military establishments, euphemistically known as Special Teahouses or Military Paradises, that serviced the needs of “front-line” soldiers during 1951-90. The one in Paradise is hardly glamourised, and the women thankfully aren’t all portrayed as victims, but the setting becomes just an exotic background, principally for the stories of the young Luo Baotai (who stays celibate to “save himself” for later life) and an older, Mainland-born sergeant-major who falls for a cute but bottom-line whore. The film was partly inspired by the autobiographical essay Make Love, Then War 军中乐园秘史 (literally, A Secret History of “Military Paradises”) by Taiwan veteran Ye Xiangxi 叶祥曦, 67, whose reminiscences of his sexual experiences in the military of the 1950s reminded Niu of his own father’s. (The film is dedicated to both his father and his grandfather, as well as to “all of us floating in the sea of destiny”.)
Was this, after all, the original starting point for the movie, rather than anything more political? There are signs, judging by production stills, that many scenes disappeared during the final editing, and that a longer version of the film may have done more justice to the themes raised and left undeveloped. In the event, it might have been better to have been more ruthless in the editing – especially with subplots such as inter-soldier bullying and factional disputes between the prostitutes – rather than trying to include a bit of everything in what is already a rich enough pie. Hou Xiaoxian 侯孝贤, who gave Niu his first acting break in The Boys from Fengkuei 风柜来的人 (1983), is credited as both a producer and supervising editor, and gets a special thanks in the end credits.
The one weakness in the cast is actor-model Ruan Jingtian 阮经天 who was OK in Monga and Love but needs stronger material than he’s given by the script, which makes Luo Baotai a blank, passive observer rather than a proactive character. With the movie lacking a strong central spine, it becomes a collection of vivid personalities rather than a cohesive drama, dominated by Mainland character actor Chen Jianbin 陈建斌 (the gruff lead in People Mountain People Sea 人山人海, 2011) as the sergeant-major who pines for his home village but ends up falling for the brothel’s cutest gold-digger (well-played by Taiwan’s Chen Yihan 陈意涵, who’s gradually building up an impressive CV).
Among other roles, Chen Yiwen 陈以文 (director of The Cabbie 运转手之恋, 2000, among other films) makes a wry, sympathetic friend for Chen’s sergeant-major, and Wang Bojie 王柏杰 is serviceable as Luo Baotai’s bullied pal. But it’s understandably the female cast who give the film its colour, led by Mainland actress Wan Qian 万茜 (Threads of Time 柳如是, 2012) as Luo Baotai’s classy love interest with a secret past, Taiwan’s Miao Keli 苗可丽 as one of the older, bolshier whores, and half-Taiwan, half-Paraguayan model Lei Jiexi 雷婕熙 (aka Zhang Xiaolan 张筱兰) in a small role as an aboriginal girl with whom Luo Baotai’s pal flees. Throughout, the widescreen photography by Hong Kong’s Lin Zhijian 林志坚 [Charlie Lam] creates a strongly textured frame for them to shine in, while the traditional score by Taiwan composer Li Xinyun 李欣芸 adds deft support. However, despite the strength of the individual performances and craft contributions, it’s notable how Paradise doesn’t pack much wallop at a simple emotional level. It’s never boring, but hardly as moving as it should be – again because Niu and Zeng let the big picture escape them.
CREDITS
Presented by Honto Production (TW), Huayi Brothers Media (CN). Produced by Honto Production (TW), Atom Cinema (TW).
Script: Zeng Liting, Niu Chengze [Doze Niu]. Photography: Lin Zhijian [Charlie Lam]. Editing supervision: Hou Xiaoxian. Editing: Su Peiyi, Chen Junhong. Music: Li Xinyun. Production design: Huang Meiqing. Art direction: Liao Wenling. Costume design: Fang Qilun, Xu Liwen, Gao Jialin. Sound: Du Duzhi. Action: Huang Jianwei, Yang Zhilong. Visual effects: Jeon Seok-jae.
Cast: Ruan Jingtian (Luo Baotai), Chen Jianbin (Zhang Yongshan, sergeant-major), Wan Qian (Nini, No. 7), Chen Yihan (Jiao, No. 8), Wang Bojie (Zhong Huaxing), Miao Keli (Xia/Cher, No. 2), Chen Yiwen (Yu, colonel), Chen Daoxian (Che Dayong), Huang Jianwei (Sea Dragon training instructor), Liao Qizhi [Liu Kai-chi] (Cantonese officer), Hongdulasi [Honduras] (Lin Xinhong), Tuo Yiran (Zhou Jingwu, Unit 831 director), Wu Zhiqing (Sea Dragon cadet), Lei Jiexi (Shasha, No. 16), Xu Wanshan (Yuetao/Peach, No. 5), Zhong Shimin (No. 1), Lin Zijun (No. 3), Yawei Mizhi [Yawey Mic] (No. 4), Mai Qiaowen (No. 9), Chen Jinghui (No. 10), Fang Jialin (No. 12), Rao Xingxing (No. 13), Weng Ningqian (No. 15), Xie Junhui (No. 18), Zhang Wei (No. 20), Cheng Xiangyin (Sea Dragon lieutenant), Wang Zhenquan (pawnshop manager), Cheng Liuyi (Shasha’s client), Shang Guowei (Jiao’s client), Xiang Hong (Zhang Yongshan’s mother), Wang Rui (teenage Zhang Yongshan), Chen Zhiying (Yu’s bride), Cai Huimei (wedding host), Qiu Ziwu (Deng Lijun/Teresa Teng), Ke Nianxuan (Bai Jiali).
Release: Taiwan, 5 Sep 2014; China, tba.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 16 Nov 2014.)