No More Bets
孤注一掷
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 129 mins.
Director: Shen Ao 申奥.
Rating: 7/10.
A dark, often violent but mostly gripping drama centred on an online scamming operation run by Chinese from a disused factory in the Thai countryside.
STORY
A city in China, 2018. Programmer 码农. After losing out on a company promotion, ambitious young programmer Pan Sheng (Zhang Yixing), originally from Changsha city, Hunan province, decides to join gaming company Firefly, based in Singapore. During the flight there, along with four other recruits, he’s very cocky and self-assured; the group’s supervisor An Juncai (Sun Yang) just smiles and says little. During a 10-hour stopover in Thailand, all five recruits are kidnapped while exploring the city. They’re taken to a disused firecracker factory in the countryside that’s a massive centre for online scamming, fraud, gaming and chats that’s patrolled by armed guards and staffed by a large number of men and women. Everyone is psychologically battered into compliance, and promised large salaries depending on individual results. The centre is run with an iron fist in a velvet glove by Lu Bingkun (Wang Chuanjun), in a good cop/bad coup routine with his deputy An Juncai. Pan Sheng fails in trying to get a message of help out through a toilet window; but in so doing he meets Liang Anna (Jin Chen), who works as an online model there. Model 模特. (In an elaborate con by her friends and employers, Liang Anna had been lured into signing up for a modelling job in Thailand with several other women. They had entered the country illegally, crossing the border by land. After arriving she had learned the truth, and been trained to work as a glamorous baccarat banker in an online casino.) As Liang Anna has been in the toilet for a while, An Juncai comes looking for her. He later finds Pan Sheng, who’s just managed to eat his message, hiding in a stall. Catfish 大货. In Xianjiang city, China, Gu Tianzhi (Wang Dalu) is lured into playing online baccarat with Liang Anna as the banker. He starts well but ends up cleaned out. He is then offered a loan, but uses it to buy a flute for his student girlfriend Song Yu (Zhou Ye). He’s then lured into playing online roulette, then the football lottery. As he gets deeper into debt he’s forced to sell his blood. Finally. Song Yu goes to the police and they investigate Gu Tianzhi’s case. Gu Tianzhi is being “run” from the centre by Pan Sheng, who adopts the online personalities of Liang Anna and others as instructed by An Juncai and Lu Bingkun. Eventually, after ruining his family and losing a total of RMB8 million, Gu Tianzhi commits suicide. At the centre, Lu Bingkun and An Juncai throw a huge staff party, honouring Pan Sheng and Liang Anna. Pan Sheng tries to get a message out via a colleague of Liang Anna who’s being sent home; but his ruse is discovered and he has his leg broken as a punishment. Liang Anna is first tortured and then released on a boat home. When Zhao Dongran (Yong Mei), the CID officer leading the investigation, hears that Song Yu’s boyfriend committed suicide, she vows to get the villains. A chance clue that Song Yu gives her – a photo of model Liang Anna – turns out to be a major lead in the investigation.
REVIEW
An often gripping drama, centred on an online scamming centre run by Chinese in Thailand, No More Bets 孤注一掷 tries to be a bit different from run-of-the-mill crime dramas and derives much of its strength from portraying its characters in depth. The second feature written and directed by Beijing Film Academy graduate Shen Ao 申奥, 36, following his notable black rom-com My Dear Liar 受益人 (2019) – also centred on swindlers – it’s again creatively produced by director Ning Hao 宁浩 via his Dirty Monkeys studio. With its underlying theme of people trying to make quick money, and paying the price, the film unfortunately gets over-preachy in its final half-hour, especially when the Chinese police get involved and a victim’s girlfriend works alongside them. However, none of this prevented No More Bets becoming a major summer hit, hawling in a rosy RMB3.84 billion to become the year’s third biggest local film so far, after Full River Red 满江红 (RMB4.54 billion) and The Wandering Earth II 流浪地球2 (RMB4.03 billion). [Final tally was RMB3.85 billion.]
Framed as a lecture by a specialist CID officer (veteran Inner Mongolian TV actress Yong Mei 咏梅), the plot centres on three victims who are drawn into the activities of an online scamming operation run by Chinese from a disused factory deep in the Thai countryside. The main character is Pan Sheng, a brilliant, ambitious and cocky programmer who signs up for a job in Singapore but is kidnapped during a stopover en route. In the remote centre he gets to know a model, Liang Anna, who’s been hoodwinked by her friends into signing up for what she thinks is a modelling assignment. The third main character is Gu Tianzhi, a gaming addict back in China who’s lured into online gambling and “run” remotely by Pan Sheng (adopting various online guises) and Liang Anna (as a beautiful banker in online baccarat). When his story ends tragically, the Chinese police, led by the specialist CID officer, get involved.
The script, by Shen, Zhang Yifan 张艺凡 (a BFA graduate who started her career as a writer on Ning’s road comedy Breakup Buddies 心花路放, 2014) and Xu Luyang 许渌洋 (who co-wrote My Dear Liar), immediately tries to get away from simple black-and-white stereotypes, with all three of the main characters portrayed as deeply flawed and even the two crooks who run the centre as more than just thuggish villains. Though parts of Pan Sheng and Liang Anna want to escape the scamming centre, they’re also attracted – like all the kidnapped workers there – by the power they can hold over people online and by the opportunities for making money and eventually earning their freedom. Greed conquers all. Nowhere is this dichotomy more plain than in a section where a victim’s suicide is mourned by his family as a tragic event but celebrated by the scamming centre’s staff as a financial triumph.
Supporting this more textured approach is the film’s look, with grubby, hand-held photography by Wang Tianxing 王天行 (from the indie scene, d.p. on Kaili Blues 路边野餐, 2015, camera operator on Baby 宝贝儿, 2018) that gives the drama great immediacy, plus an overall tone that’s dark and, at times, very violent. An especially nasty scene comes some 80 minutes in, when a character’s leg is broken with a baseball bat.
Both Hong Kong’s Sun Yang 孙阳 (the young smuggler in The Crossing 过春天, 2018) and Shanghai’s Wang Chuanjun 王传君 (the leukaemia patient in Dying to Survive 我不是药神, 2018) give considerable depth to the two crooks who run the centre in a kind of bad cop/good cop routine. As the ambitious programmer who learns a new set of values, Mainland actor-singer Zhang Yixing 张艺兴 (Tale of the Night 长沙夜生活, 2023) builds a strong presence, while former dancer/rhythmic gymnast Jin Chen 金晨, 32, who made a good start back in rom-com Forever Love 201314 (2013), cuts a strong character as the ambitious model who befriends him. As the online victim, Taiwan’s Wang Dalu 王大陆 (Legend of the Naga Pearls 鲛珠传, 2017) is just okay in a role not quite suited to his breezy style. As his character’s girlfriend, Zhou Ye 周也, so good in youth romance Yesterday Once More 倒数说爱你 (2023), comes through strongly later on.
The film’s Chinese title is a four-character phrase that means staking everything on one throw or putting all your eggs in one basket. The exteriors of the disused factory were shot in Macau.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Dirty Monkeys Studio (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), China Film (CN), Beijing Super Lion Culture Communication (CN), Yuuye (Shanghai) Media (CN).
Script: Shen Ao, Zhang Yifan, Xu Luyang. Photography: Wang Tianxing. Editing: Zhou Xiaolin, Shen Ao. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Li Anran. Styling: Tang Ning. Sound: Lin Siyu. Action: Yao Xingxing. Visual effects: Li Tao. Artistic supervision: Lin Mu.
Cast: Zhang Yixing (Pan Sheng), Jin Chen (Liang Anna), Yong Mei (Zhao Dongran, CID officer), Wang Chuanjun (Lu Bingkun), Wang Dalu (Gu Tianzhi), Zhou Ye (Song Yu, Gu Tianzhi’s girlfriend), Sun Yang (An Juncai), Deng Cuiwen (Gu Tianzhi’s mother), Lin Wei (Gu Tianzhi’s father), Huang Yixin (Miao Feng), Wang Yiwei (Ma Rong), Xin Peng (Shi Ke), Tang Jiawen (Li Shuang, Liang Anna’s friend at model agency), Liu Jingyu (immigration officer), Lin Weichen (Guan Yongchao), Sheng Gangshuai (Betel Nut), Hong Zhusheng (Mai), Li Donghai (manager), Deng Xinqi (Deng Fangfang), Shu Meiling (Lu Yueting).
Release: China, 8 Aug 2023.