Mr. No Problem

不成问题的问题

China/France, 2016, b&w, 1.85:1, 143 mins. (premiere version), 133 mins. (release version).

Director: Mei Feng 梅峰.

Rating: 8/10.

Veteran comic Fan Wei is superb in a sardonic comedy of manners about old and new ways in 1940s China.

STORY

Chongqing municipality, central China, c. 1942. Ding Wuyuan (Fan Wei) is the manager of Shuhua Farm, outside the city, that is owned jointly by the Xu family, led by Xu Ruhai (Wang Kanwei), and businessman Tong Jinxian (Feng Mantian). Xu Ruhai hired Ding Wuyuan on a year’s contract and he has already completed six months, but the farm is still losing money and there are rumours of Ding Wuyuan withholding worker’s wages. Ding Wuyuan 丁务源. Ding Wuyuan invites Tong Jinxian’s unmarried daughter, amateur painter Tong Yifang (Wang Zitong), to visit the farm; she arrives with Shen Yuemei (Shi Yihong), Xu Ruhai’s third wife, and falls for the scenery. Later, Ding Wuyuan hears Tong Jinxian wants to sack him, but he is protected by Xu Ruhai, despite stories that the workers are stealing cabbage leaves for pigfeed with Ding Wuyuan’s knowledge. Though it further hits the farm’s finances, Ding Wuyuan funds a party for Xu Ruhai’s son, against the objections of the farm’s bookkeeper (Jiang Zhongwei). Meanwhile, the smooth-talking Qin Miaozhai (Zhang Chao) turns up, penniless, at the farm, claiming to be an “artist” with a wealthy father. He talks Ding Wuyuan into renting him a room on credit. Qin Miaozhai 秦妙斋. Despite still not paying any rent, Qin Miaozhai is allowed to stay on by Ding Wuyuan, who flatters him as an “artist” and introduces him to Tong Yifang when she pays another visit with Shen Yuemei. Tong Yifang takes a liking to him, and he proposes she funds an art exhibition he is arranging. During the party afterwards, a friend of Qin Miaozhai is arrested as a Japanese collaborator, causing a scandal. Ding Wuyuan is sacked, and Tong Yifang dumps Qin Miaozhai. You Daxing 尤大兴. A new farm manager, foreign-educated agriculture PhD You Daxing (Wang Hanbang), arrives with his wife, Yuxia (Yin Tao). Ding Wuyuan stays on temporarily to ensure a smooth handover. You Daxing tells him to kick Qin Miaozhai out as he still hasn’t paid any rent, and starts a crackdown on workers’ pilfering. Ding Wuyuan absents himself in Chongqing for a week “on business” and, when he returns, finds he has been made deputy director to help calm things down. But then Qin Miaozhai starts fomenting a workers’ rebellion against You Daxing.

REVIEW

Mei Feng 梅峰, best known as a writer for director Lou Ye 娄烨 in all his ups (Purple Butterfly 紫蝴蝶, 2003; Mystery 浮城谜事, 2012) and downs (Summer Palace 颐和园, 2006; Spring Fever 春风沉醉的夜晚, 2009), makes a strong debut as a director with Mr. No Problem 不成问题的问题, a sardonic comedy of manners based on a little-known short story by Lao She 老舍. First serialised in the Chongqing edition of Da Kung Pao 大公报 newspaper in Jan 1943, it’s an ironic study of the clash between new and old ways – and the preoccupation with “face” – in pre-PRC China. In a role he was born for, Mainland comedian Fan Wei 范伟, 54, is superb as the duplicitous manager of a loss-making, feudal-style farm for whom everything is “not a problem” (the movie’s Chinese title), and heads a strong cast of players in nuanced, beautifully directed performances.

The same themes received memorably ironic treatment in Gimme Kudos 求求你表扬我 (Huang Jianxin 黄建新, 2004), in which Fan coincidentally acted; but Problem, set 60 years earlier in another age and society, also shows to perfection his gift for eliding the border between comedy and drama that he previously demonstrated in The Parking Attendant in July 看车人的七月 (2003). Fan’s oily Ding Wuyuan, for whom insincerity is just a way of life, defies all the attempts of a hostile shareholder to remove him from his post, manipulating or seeing off (a) a technocratic replacement, (b) a penniless con artist, and (c) an indolent, pilfering workforce, without ever seeming to obviously scheme. Ding Wuyuan is the ultimate product of a feudal society in which position and “face” are everything, and knows how to keep its wheels turning at every level: aside from flattering his superiors, and keeping onside a con artist who could be useful in the future, he even knows how to rip off his labourers while making them think he’s doing them a favour. The most serious threat to his existence comes in the form of a new breed of foreign-trained, technocratic management that disdains bribes, flattery and all the usual feudal apparatus. But as the film makes clear, the old ways are not quite finished yet.

Mei adopts a directing style that is semi-arty without being bloodless. Despite being in b&w, and largely composed of fixed-camera, tableaux-like set-ups, the film is alive with rich, nuanced performances that hold the attention. In an effortless demonstration of minimalist acting, Fan embodies the whole movie’s subtly ironic approach: the viewer never knows whether Ding Wuyuan is actively scheming or just going with the flow, and Fan’s face reveals few clues beyond its serene, Cheshire Cat-like smile.

In contrast, Zhang Chao 张超, 28, who played the light-hearted violinist friend in Somewhere Only We Know 有一个地方只有我们知道 (2015), is all energy and boyish charm as the fast-talking con artist who takes on a surprising role in the film’s denouement. As the charmless technocrat brought in to oust Ding Wuyuan, Wang Hanbang 王瀚邦 embodies the practical approach that was soon to forge New China while still embodying some of the old ways, as in the character’s relationship with his docile wife (TV actress Yin Tao 殷桃, 36, in a smallish but crucial role). Nicely paralleling Fan’s minimalist approach are the performances by Wang Zitong 王梓桐 – so good in the lead role of the little-seen drama Lost 百合 (2011) – as the pampered daughter of one of the farm’s owners, and Peking Opera grande dame Shi Yihong 史依弘 as the main owner’s commanding third wife. The poised scenes between Fan, Wang and Shi are among the best in the film – for what they don’t say out loud.

Photography by newcomer Zhu Jinjing 朱津京 is processed in an unstylised b&w, with no strong chiaroscuro or other affectations. The main things are the performances and the script, and Mei appears to want nothing to get in the way of either (music only enters during the end titles). Presumably in a nod to the period, traditional script is used for the character names that form the three chapter headings (though not for the film’s title or credits). The farm, about which so much is heard, is only properly seen much later, though its absence to that point is hardly noticeable; likewise, the Sino-Japanese War that is going on in the country but is never seen or heard. Given the performances and ebb-and-flow of the story, the two-hour-plus running time is no strain – which can hardly be said for most VFX spectacles of similar length. [Version reviewed here is the 143-minute premiere one.]

CREDITS

Presented by Youth Film Studio (CN), Kingway Communication (CN), Beijing Shengyu Film & TV Culture Investment (CN), Mare Nostrum Productions (FR). Produced by Atrio Media (Beijing) (CN).

Script: Mei Feng, Huang Shi. Short story: Lao She. Photography: Zhu Jinjing. Editing: Liao Qingsong. Music: Feng Mantian. Art direction: Wang Zhi, Zhang Danqing. Styling: Wang Zhan. Sound: Yang Hao, Zheng Jiaqing. Artistic advice: Zhong Dafeng.

Cast: Fan Wei (Ding Wuyuan), Yin Tao (Mingxia, You Daxing’s wife), Zhang Chao (Qin Miaozhai), Shi Yihong (Shen Yuemei, third wife), Wang Hanbang (You Daxing), Wang Zitong (Tong Yifang), Jiang Zhongwei (Li Sanming, bookkeeper), Feng Mantian (Tong Jinxian), Wang Kanwei (Xu Ruhai, Shen Yuemei’s husband), Yu Ying (Mrs. Zhang), Liang Tingwei (Shousheng, Ding Wuyuan’s servant).

Premiere: Tokyo Film Festival (Competition), 29 Oct 2016.

Release: China, 21 Nov 2017.