Yanagawa
漫长的告白
China, 2021, colour, 1.85:1, 112 mins.
Director: Zhang Lv 张律.
Rating: 3/10.
More accessible than most of Zhang Lv’s features, this indie confection is still a gabfest that goes nowhere.
STORY
Beijing, the present day. While having a smoke outside Beijing University People’s Hospital, Lidong (Zhang Luyi) confides to another patient (Nai An) that he’s just been diagnosed with late-stage cancer. During a drink together at a Japanese-style bar, Lidong suggests to his elder brother Lichun (Xin Baiqing) that the two of them go away together for a few days – to Yanagawa, “Japan’s Venice”. Lichun, who needs a break from family life, eventually agrees. When they arrive in Yanagawa, Lichun discovers that Lidong speaks Japanese, starting to study it about two years ago. They stay at a small private guesthouse in the suburbs that’s run by Nakayama Hiroki (Ikematsu Sosuke). It has only two guest rooms, and the other is occupied. On a boatride through the town’s canals, Lichun is impressed by the peace and calm. The boatman claims Yanagawa was the birthplace of Ono Yoko, wife of the late John Lennon. However, it is also where Lichun’s onetime girlfriend, Liu Chuan (Ni Ni), who suddenly dumped him 20 years ago and vanished without any explanation, now lives. After dinner, the two brothers visit a nearby bar, Grotto, where Liu Chuan sings. She was still in her teens when she and Lichun had a relationship in Beijing; unknown to Lichun, Lidong also loved her. As the three walk and talk, Li Chuan explains to Lichun that she suddenly moved to London all those years ago; eventually she decided to come to Yanagawa after a Japanese friend there said her name in Chinese used the same characters as his hometown, Yanagawa. The three go to a restaurant the brothers were at earlier; Nakayama Hiroki happens to be there, and turns out to be that “Japanese friend”. It also turns out that Liu Chuan is the other person staying in his guesthouse. That night, Lichun visits her room. Next day Nakayama Hiroki has a confession to make to Liu Chuan, as well as revealing he has a teenage daughter (Ninon) from a long-ago flirtation. Over the next few days Li Chuan takes both brothers around the region in her car.
REVIEW
Though nowhere near as accessible as his 2014 feature Gyeongju 경주, Yanagawa 漫长的告白 is one of the easier films to sit through by Zhang Lv 张律, 60, an academic-turned-director born and raised in northeast China of Korean parents. For Sinophiles, it’s also notable as his first feature since Chongqing 重庆 (2008) to be set (if only partly) in China and centred on Chinese characters. However, as much as it’s more approachable, it’s still a gabfest that goes nowhere, full of Zhang’s trademarks such as characters acting in unmotivated ways, awkward non-sequitur conversations, a feeling that scenes were invented on the hoof, and an intellectual and emotional emptiness that’s a waste of the viewer’s time. Given a two-country festival premiere in autumn last year, it opened commercially in the Mainland this summer, taking a tiny but (for this kind of fare) respectable RMB6.3 million.
Far more than character, place has generally been the most important ingredient in Zhang’s films, often taking the title itself (Desert Dream Hyazgar, 2006; Chongqing; Dooman River 豆满江 | 두만강, 2010; Gyeongju; Fukuoka 후쿠오카, 2020), and it’s definitely the most memorable aspect of Yanagawa, with the southern Japanese city’s famous canals and sense of calm. This main section is sandwiched by scenes in Beijing, where two brothers (one of whom is dying of cancer) decide to take a trip to the town where now lives a girl they both loved 20 years ago when she was still in her teens. (Her name in Chinese 柳川 also just happens to be the same as for Yanagawa… hmmm.) Now singing in a local bar, she also happens to be rooming in the same guesthouse as the brothers use, as well as being very friendly with its Japanese owner whom she first met during an extended stay in London. Cue lots of clumsy conversations in English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin, as various combinations of the above four characters stroll around the town and try to answer long-unanswered questions. All of this justifies the film’s Chinese title (literally, “Endless Explanations”) but, by the end, little has been resolved and the characters haven’t evolved a jot.
An up-and-down actress who’s generally better in more physical roles (Suddenly Seventeen 28岁未成年, 2016; The Thousand Faces of Dunjia 奇门遁甲, 2017; Savage 雪暴, 2018), Nanjing-born Ni Ni 倪妮, 34, seems cast adrift by the woolly script and too often just resorts to laughter or a flippant tone to keep things moving. Despite Ni’s top billing, the film is actually more about the two brothers, especially cancer victim Lidong (relaxedly played by TV-theatre actor-director Zhang Luyi 张鲁一, so good in Love on the Cloud 微爱之渐入佳境, 2014) but also his elder brother Lichun (charismatic Xin Baiqing 辛柏青, the drunken poet in Legend of the Demon Cat 妖猫传, 2017), who’s as loud and restless as Lidong is quiet and enigmatic. Of the Japanese supports, veteran actress Nakano Ryoko 中野良子 makes the most impression as a wise old restaurateuse.
Images of wintry Yanagawa and Beijing by South Korean d.p. Bak Jeong-hun 박정훈 | 朴正训 (Fukuoka) are clean and unfussy and rather dull, and music by indie-film composer Xiaohe 小河 is sparing. Mainland actress Wang Jiajia 王佳佳 (Wisdom Tooth 日光之下, 2019) pops up at the end as the elder brother’s naggy wife, and Nai An 耐安, the film’s creative producer 监制 who is well known for her festival-friendly fare, cameos at the start in a streetside conversation with the younger brother.
CREDITS
Presented by Emei Film Group (CN), Huanxi Media Group (Beijing) (CN), Hishow Entertainment (CN), Midnight Blur (Hangzhou) Films (CN). Produced by Midnight Blur (Hangzhou) Films (CN).
Script: Zhang Lv. Photography: Bak Jeong-hun. Editing: Oh Se-hyeon, Liu Xinzhu, Sun Yixi. Music: Xiaohe. Art direction: Hou Jie. Styling: Liu Yimu. Sound: Du Juntang, Du Duzhi, Du Zegang. Executive direction: Liu Yuzhu.
Cast: Ni Ni (Liu Chuan), Zhang Luyi (Lidong), Xin Baiqing (Lichun), Ikematsu Sosuke (Nakayama Hiroki, guesthouse owner), Nakano Ryoko (Japanese restaurant owner), Ninon (Nakayama Hiroki’s daughter), Wang Jiajia (Lichun’s wife), Mao Le (Beijing bar owner), Nai An (female patient at hospital).
Premiere: Busan Film Festival (Icons), 12 Oct 2021; Pingyao Film Festival (opening film), 12 Oct 2021.
Release: China, 12 Aug 2022.