The Road Not Taken
未择之路
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 114 mins.
Director: Tang Gaopeng 唐高鹏.
Rating: 7/10.
Stylised blend of several genres is entertaining enough but doesn’t realise its full potential.
STORY
Northern Gansu province, China, the present day. On the southwest edge of the Gobi Desert, Er Yong (Wang Xuebing) runs an isolated ostrich farm. He is in debt to a moneylender, Li (Wang Shuo), whose henchman, Brother Five (Wang Xufeng), pays a visit, threatening to take over a flat that he pledged as collateral. The problem is that the flat is occupied by Er Yong’s ex-wife of two years, Cao Xiaoyan (Wang Xiaoxi), who is in complete ignorance of the deal he did behind her back. As a “favour”, Brother Five tells Er Yong to look after a friend’s young son (Zhu Gengyou) for a couple of days. When Brother Five has left, Er Yong phones his ex-wife but they immediately argue when he hears the voice of another man in the flat. Angry, Er Yong decides to drive to see her, taking the boy with him. Initially the boy refuses to speak to him but, after almost crashing the truck, he reluctantly answers Er Yong’s questions. After being caught in a roadside scam organised by garage repair owner Big Ears (Yue Xiaojun), Er Yong and the boy hitch a lift with a taciturn lorry driver, Xiaomei (Ma Yili), whom Big Ears fancies. Gradually the three get to know each other – Xiaomei was deserted by her husband four years ago – but they eventually go their separate ways. Unknown to Xiaomei, Big Ears has been jealously following her. And then Big Ears tracks down Er Yong and asks for the boy back.
REVIEW
A divorced ostrich farmer on the edge of the Gobi Desert finds himself caught up in a disastrous train of events in The Road Not Taken 未择之路, which blends several genres – odd-couple, road, desert and comedy of errors – into a generally entertaining, if rather familiar, result. This first feature by 30-something director Tang Gaopeng 唐高鹏, whose background is in advertising, looks consistently good, in a non-posey way, and makes striking use of the dusty, desolate locations, with the visuals reflecting the highly controlled style of the whole film. Overall, it’s more reliant on strong performances from key cast members than on the screenplay, which starts strongly but then marks time in the final half-hour. Mainland box-office was an undeservedly feeble RMB7.4 million.
The desert-set black comedy, with one thing leading to another or treasure to be found (Welcome to Shamatown 决战刹马镇, 2010; No Liar, No Cry 不怕贼惦记, 2011), was especially popular around the start of the 2010s; but given China’s abundance of jaw-dropping desolate locations (Xinjiang, Ningxia, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, to name just a few) it’s proved a hardy genre, most recently in Wrath of Silence 暴裂无声 (2017). Road falls into the same mildly arty category, and if the film has a familiar feel that may be because the lead writer is Yue Xiaojun 岳小军, who’s worked regularly on the twisty, often road-set black comedies of director Ning Hao 宁浩 (Crazy Stone 疯狂的石头, 2006; Guns and Roses 黄金大劫案, 2012; Breakup Buddies 心花路放, 2014). The other credited writer – apart from Tang himself – is Duan Zheqing 段喆卿, who comes from theatre and worked on the script of the 2007 stage version of Crazy Stone by Beijing comedy troupe Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花.
Teasingly, the film sets itself up as several things but never neatly falls into one genre or another. After introducing hapless hero Er Yong – divorced, penniless, breeding ostriches in the desert – he’s paired with a stroppy young kid, whom a moneylender has asked him to look after, as the pair drive across the desert to visit Er Yong’s ex-wife. Though the two arrange a kind of truce, the film doesn’t develop into a gooey melodrama between a loner and his de facto son – nor, when a similarly taciturn, female lorry driver enters the story halfway, does it become either a bitter-sweet romance between her and Er Yong or a heartwarming look at a de facto “family” made up of loners (despite the hint in the film’s poster). It flirts with all of those things for a while, nicely keeping the viewer guessing; but as the road-movie element peters out, the female lead is simply jettisoned around the 65-minute mark, and the various emotional strands unravel in favour of action and busy plotting, Road ends up as a strangely unsatisfying hybrid.
For much of the time the film coasts along on its look – d.p. Guo Daming 郭达明 shot the Tibetan-set Paths of the Soul གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ། | 冈仁波齐, 2015, and Soul on a String 皮绳上的魂, 2016, the latter making especially striking use of landscape – and its performances, the latter led by actor Wang Xuebing 王学兵, 47, in his first film role since being caught up in a crackdown on celebrity drug-taking in 2014. Wang has lost none of his easy likeability and is just right as the rather desperate lead who still can’t realise his marriage is over. Chemistry between him and both newcomer Zhu Gengyou 朱耕佑 as the kid and the experienced Ma Yili 马伊琍, 42, as the tomboyish lorry driver, is fine, making it a special shame when the latter (a fine actress too rarely seen on the big screen) is yanked from the story. To that point she’s managed to make her character more than a cliche and less than a script device.
Supporting roles are fine in a slightly exaggerated way, led by writer Yue’s own performance as a lovesick roadside scammer and Wang Xufeng 王旭峰 as a moneylender’s front man. Effective use is made of occasional breathy flute sounds, underlying the hot, desolate setting, with fretted music supplying relief at the end. In a completely gratuitous cameo after the end titles, Ma’s actor-director husband, Wen Zhang 文章 (Love Is Not Blind 失恋33天, 2011; When Larry Met Mary 陆垚知马俐, 2016), pops up as a hitchhiker. The film’s Chinese title means “The Unchosen Road”, in the sense of Er Yong’s unwished-for journey.
CREDITS
Presented by Shenyang V Shinebrothers Culture Media (CN), Hengye Pictures (CN), U. Lan Media (CN), Beijing Er Dong Pictures (CN), Beijing Weiying Technology (CN), Fortune Times Venture Capital (CN), V Shinebrothers Culture Media (CN), Youku Information Technology (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Beijing V Shinebrothers Film & Culture Media (CN), Horgos V Shinebrothers Culture Media (CN), Gunter (Beijing) Pictures (CN).
Script: Yue Xiaojun, Tang Gaopeng, Duan Zheqing. Photography: Guo Daming. Editing: Imai Tsuyoshi. Music: Chen Hongli. Art direction: Qin Weili. Costumes: Ju Baohong. Sound: Wang Yanwei, Wang Zheng. Action: Chen Chunkun. Executive direction: Shang Jin.
Cast: Wang Xuebing (Er Yong), Ma Yili (Xiaomei), Zhu Gengyou (boy), Wang Xufeng (Wu Ge/Brother Five), Yue Xiaojun (Da Erduo/Big Ears), Wen Zhang (hitchhiker), Qu Gaowei (Baoyu), Li Junsheng (Jun), Li Deqiang (water-station man), Wang Lin (water-station man’s wife), Zhou Jinfeng (evicted woman), Wang Shuo (Li, Brother Five’s boss), Duan Shuke (garage repair woman), Wang Yandong (melon seller), Wang Jianfei (billiard-hall boss), Wen Bo (Brother Five’s son), Qi Xiaojing (photographer), Wang Xiaoxi (Cao Xiaoyan, Er Yong’s ex-wife), Xiao Libin (Zhao, boy’s father), Zheng Xinsheng (Cao Xiaoyan’s husband).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Asian New Talent Awards), 19 Jun 2018.
Release: China, 14 Sep 2018.