The Man Behind the Courtyard House

守望者  罪恶迷途

China, 2011, colour, 1.85:1, 103 mins.

Director: Fei Xing 非行.

Rating: 7/10.

Fascinating genre-bender that morphs from C-Horror into something quite different.

STORY

Southern China, the present day. Four students – Chu Xiaoli (Huang Shengyi), her boyfriend, computer geek Zhiqiang (Yu Shaoqun), history student Fattie and Chu Xiaoli’s friend Zhenzhen – arrive by four-wheel drive at a remote courtyard-style house on Red Wheat Hill, near Pan Family Town, Shunjiang municipality. They are visiting the area to watch a ceremony by the Kuyi ethnic minority and hope to stay with the owners of the house, Huang Jinzheng and his wife, who are old friends of Chu Xiaoli’s parents. The door is opened by dour Chen Zhihui (Ren Dahua), who claims he’s a distant relative of the Huangs, says he is looking after the house while the Huangs are away, and lets them stay in quarters at the rear. That night, while having a private chat with Fattie, Chen Zhihui shows him an ancient tribal crown, and then hammers a nail into the base of his skull. The next day, alone with Chu Xiaoli, Chen Zhihui tells her that 20 years ago he knew her parents, Chu Hongwei and Zhao Tianlun. Later that day, after Zhenzhen goes missing, Zhiqiang, suspicious of Chen Zhihui, confronts him directly, resulting in a night of blood and revelations. Some time previous to these events, Zhou Dong (Chen Sicheng), an employee of state-owned Red Star Machinery Factory, had arrived in Pan Family Town to investigate why the factory was still paying Huang Jinzheng a pension when he may already be dead. Staying at the same guesthouse, run by the married but lonely Hong (Zhang Jingchu), was Chen Zhihui who, after overhearing Zhou Dong talking about his assignment, told him he was also looking for Huang Jinzheng, who was an old friend from 20 years ago.

REVIEW

Starting off like a routine entry in the Mainland’s burgeoning C-Horror genre, but then morphing into something very different, the clumsily-titled The Man Behind the Courtyard House 守望者  罪恶迷途 is one of the most original genre spins of the year from China. Confusingly marketed at the time under various categories – horror, crime, “China’s first crime drama” (whatever that means) and even as a kind of Chinese answer to The Silence of the Lambs (no way) – in its totality the film recalls, especially in its three-part structure, movies like Green Hat 绿帽子 (2004), by Liu Fendou 刘奋斗, which show the same material from different angles and cast new light on events.

Beginning with four young, fresh-faced people arriving at a remote house in whose courtyard there are already some suspicious looking large pots full of “meat”, the movie looks like becoming a straightforward slasher thriller, with Hong Kong actor Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] as a dour psycho with a hammer and nails. (Chinese audiences have already been primed from the title, which emans “The Watchman: Evil Astray”.) But there are intimations early on, as the body count starts to rise too quickly, that there’s not really enough here to pad out 100 minutes. Indeed, there isn’t: at the 30-minute point, the film fades out, and a new story begins, centred on a factory employee (played by Chen Sicheng 陈思诚) who’s come to town to investigate a possible case of fraud. It quickly becomes apparent that the timeframe has shifted to a few days earlier and, armed with privileged information, the audience is about to witness a prequel to the opening – followed later by a pre-prequel – that completely redefines any earlier assumptions.

To describe what happens during the two prequels would take away an audience’s sense of discovery. Suffice it to say that, in his feature debut, writer-director Fei Xing 非行 – pen-name of Li Wenbing 李文兵, a onetime folk-music graduate, guitarist and successful TV drama writer-director – takes the viewer down a fascinating path that manages to include philosophising on lost love, an exhilarating dance sequence, a putative love story and a criminal scam, by the end of which the opening half-hour is only a distant memory. Stylised, though in a “realistic” way, and with lead performances by Ren and Chen that genuinely evolve during the shennanigans, the film only loses its overall control in the final section, which is too stretched and over-edited.

Fei Xing – a deliberately provocative alias that could be loosely translated as “non-okay” – has quietly assembled a considerable crew. On the acting side, apart from Ren (here impressively reined back) and Chen (way better here than as the spy-lover in gay drama Spring Fever 春风沉醉的夜晚, 2009), he’s almost profligate with his limited use of the assembled talent, with Zhang Jingchu 张静初 (The Road 芳香之旅, 2005) in a small but tellingly played role as a lonely hotel manageress; Huang Shengyi 黄圣依 (The Fantastic Water Babes 出水芙蓉, 2010; The Sorcerer and the White Snake 白蛇传说, 2011) as slasher fodder; Hao Lei 郝蕾 (the female lead in Summer Palace 颐和园, 2006) in a tiny role near the end; and even Yu Shaoqun 余少群 (the young Mei Lanfang in Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳, 2008) in a throwaway part as the boyfriend of Huang’s character. On the technical side there’s art director Liu Qiang 刘强, best known for his work with Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯 (Still Life 三峡好人, 2006; 24 City 二十四城记, 2008), and d.p. Wen Deguang 温德光 (camera operator on Curse of the Golden Flower 满城尽带黄金甲, 2006) whose visual pallette subtly shifts from subdued tones during the opening to richer ones thereafter.

The highlight of the film is an amazing 15-minute section in the middle during which Ren and Chen’s characters sit discussing life and love in a hotel foyer and their talk fans out into an exhilarating dance number (and mini-love story) involving Zhang. By then the viewer has been primed to expect anything, but Fei Xing’s sudden story twists always seem justified by the direction in which the psychology of the characters is heading, rather than just being twists for their own sake.

Presumably because of its sympathetic portrayal of Ren’s character, the finished film spent four months to-ing and fro-ing between the director and SARFT before getting a distribution permit. The finished product shows no signs of harmful compromises.

CREDITS

Presented by Dreams of the Dragon Pictures (CN)

Script: Fei Xing. Photography: Wen Deguang. Editing: Su Lifeng. Music: Yang Zhuoxin. Art direction: Liu Qiang. Sound: Wen Bo.

Cast: Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Chen Zhihui), Huang Shengyi (Chu Xiaoli), Zhang Jingchu (Hong), Chen Sicheng (Zhou Dong), Yu Shaoqun (Zhiqiang), Wei Zi (ex-con), Hao Lei (ex-con’s wife), Shi Zhaoqi (Bao, lover of ex-con’s wife), Du Xiaoting (Huang Xiuli).

Release: China, 25 Mar 2011.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 22 Nov 2011.)