Mr. Six

老炮儿

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 137 mins.

Director: Guan Hu 管虎.

Rating: 9/10.

Feng Xiaogang triumphs as an actor in this saga of a onetime Beijing hoodlum’s apotheosis.

STORY

Beijing, the present day, early winter. Almost 60, Zhang Xuejun, aka Liu Ye/Mr. Six (Feng Xiaogang), lives a quiet life in a backstreet hutong with a small convenience shop at the front. During the 1980s he was a notorious hoodlum, and he still commands respect from police and locals whenever he tries to enforce his concepts of justice and decency. His social circle includes old friends like the heavily scarred Scrapper (Zhang Hanyu) and quiet Lampshade (Liu Hua), plus occasional lover Chatterbox (Xu Qing) who’s known him since she was a child. Zhang Xuejun’s son, Zhang Xiaobo (Li Yifeng), moved out some time ago and Zhang Xuejun is too proud to seek him out. One day, however, Zhang Xuejun hears Zhang Xiaobo has got into trouble with a young gang led by arrogant rich kid Tan Xiaofei (Wu Yifan), whose girlfriend (Shang Cencen) Zhang Xiaobo slept with and whose expensive Ferrari he deliberately scratched. The spoiled son of the influential Tan Junyao – who wants to pack him off to Canada as soon as possible – Tan Xiaofei is demanding compensation from Zhang Xiaobo, or else. Tan Xiaofei and his speed-racing gang call themselves the Twelve Masters of the Third Ring Road, and Zhang Xuejun eventually meets them in a car workshop where Zhang Xiaobo is being held hostage. Though he believes his son deserves punishment for what he did, Zhang Xuejun puts up with the insults from Tan Xiaofei’s gang and agrees to pay RMB100,000 in three days’ time to secure his release. Zhang Xuejun tries unsuccessfully to raise the money from old friends and then collapses in the street from the heart disease he refuses to get treated. He’s helped by Chatterbox, who also gives him RMB80,000 towards the ransom demand. Zhang Xuejun goes to meet Tan Xiaofei as agreed but complications arise. To resolve the problem the old-fashioned way, Zhang Xuejun proposes a gang fight on a lake behind the Summer Palace in a week’s time.

REVIEW

Veteran director, writer, producer and occasional actor Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 (Assembly 集结号, 2007; Aftershock 唐山大地震, 2010; Back to 1942 一九四二, 2012) gets the role of a lifetime – and produces a knockout performance to match – in Mr. Six 老炮儿, a drily humorous and ultimately very moving study of a onetime Beijing hoodlum who finds himself up against a younger version of himself in 21st-century New China. Over the years Feng, 57, has popped up in witty cameos in others’ films – a document forger in The Marriage Certificate 谁说我不在乎 (2001), a county governor in Let the Bullets Fly 让子弹飞 (2010), and so on – but has only had one other shot at an extended role, as the sad but sympathetic patriarch in Father 爸爸 (2000). Somewhat similar in its times-they-are-a-changin’ theme and its lead role of a proud, inflexible veteran – but painted on a much bigger canvas – Mr. Six is also the finest film to date by writer-director Guan Hu 管虎, 47, a fellow Beijinger whose previous eight features have traversed a wide variety of styles (Dirt 头发乱了, 1994; Goodbye! Our 1948 再见，我们的1948, 1999; Cow 斗牛, 2009; Design of Death 杀生, 2012; The Chef The Actor The Scoundrel 厨子戏子痞子, 2013) but have invariably been marked with a sly irony and taste for the surreal. Mr. Six has both of those qualities but also raises Guan’s game to another level, bringing a genuine humanity to his characters as well as a heartfelt nostalgia.

Given China’s rapid social and economic changes, the subject of cross-generational conflict is nothing new in recent Mainland cinema – and especially the arrogance of the so-called fu erdai (spoiled kids of wealthy entrepreneurs), against whom Feng’s character, Zhang Xuejun, finds himself pitted. The wrinkle in Mr. Six is that, though he’s always lecturing the younger generation on good manners and things like personal honour, he was a hoodlum himself 30 years ago, had a spell in prison, and has a disastrous private life in which his own son, Zhang Xiaobo, doesn’t want anything to do with him. When Zhang Xiaobo falls foul of Tan Xiaofei – a fu erdai with a powerful father – by sleeping with his girlfriend and scratching his beloved Ferrari, Zhang Xuejun puts aside his pride, contacts his son and tries to help him according to his own sense of time-honoured (though mostly hoodlum) codes.

Guan’s accomplishment, especially for a movie running well over two hours, is to make three basically unsympathetic roles into rounded characters the viewer can root for, especially as it’s clear from the start that all of them are heading towards a life-changing showdown. Guan, whose roots are equally as a writer, with notable work in TV drama as well, pulls it off with a series of unexpected plot reversals and finely drawn scenes between his leads: a long but grippingly played confrontation in which father and son settle their differences, and another in which the father and rich kid come to a kind of understanding that they’re both caught up in something that is escalating out of control.

Zhang Xuejun’s basic character is beautifully sketched in a series of pre-titles scenes which establish him as king of his backstreets neighbourhood, to whom even the local police defer, and subsidiary characters of trusty old pals and a hard-mouthed younger lover – all nicely played by the experienced Zhang Hanyu 张涵予, Liu Hua 刘桦 and Xu Qing 许晴 – fill in his social background. As the son, popular actor-singer Li Yifeng 李易峰 (Lovesick 恋爱恐慌症, 2011; Forever Young 2015 栀子花开2015, 2015 ) holds his own against Feng in their long scene together but makes less of an impression than China-born, Canada-raised singer Wu Yifan 吴亦凡 [Kris Wu], who debuted weakly in the Prague-set melodrama Somewhere Only We Know 有一个地方只有我们知道 (2015) but here manages to morph from a vicious, prissy brat with a hairdo to match to a kid with a grudging respect for Zhang Xuejun’s unshakeable convictions.

Mumbling his way through the title role in the broadest of broad Beijing accents, Feng is utterly mesmerising, mixing dry humour, ominous threat and a never-say-die approach to his failing physique in an utterly believable cocktail. Guan never condescends to the character nor makes fun of him, and his direction, along with the mobile camerawork of Luo Pan 罗攀 (Old Fish 千钧。一发, 2007; Einstein and Einstein 狗13, 2013) and editing by Zhang Wen 张文, savours Beijing’s old backstreet hutong (most of which are a specially built set) like home, as well as other street scenes in the harsh, wintry capital. Throughout, the score by Dou Peng 窦鹏, varying from gentle fretted stuff to noirish semi-blues, adds potent atmosphere.

But for all its surface realism, Guan’s Beijing is also a city of his imagination, a stage on which to play out a clash of values that’s decorated with typically surreal moments: from the opening zoom down from the sky into a night-time hutong, through a sequence in which bystanders harangue a jumper from a skyscraper, to a brilliant visual-effects sequence in which Zhang Xuejun is brought face-to-face with the modern generation speed-racing on the city’s Third Ring Road.

All of these prepare the viewer for the semi-surreal, chivalrous climax played out on a frozen lake that’s both inspiring and sad by turns. Though the ending is satisfying, Guan overplays his hand a little here, drawing things out too long like some modern Chinese spaghetti western. It’s a rare misstep in a movie that’s generally paced with assurance, and if anything could do with another 15 minutes to flesh out some of its side characters. Liu’s role as one of Zhang’s best friends is underdeveloped, and actress Liang Jing 梁静 (Guan’s real-life wife), despite being prominently billed, has almost been edited out of the picture as the wife of Liu’s character. [A huge number of known actors also cameo in tiny roles throughout the film.]

The film’s Chinese title literally means “Old Cannon”, referring to the indomitable Zhang. The English title derives from his nicknames, variously meaning “Master No. 6” or “Brother No. 6”. Unfortunately, the English subtitles do a poor job of reproducing the slangy Beijing dialogue’s earthy flavour and (unlike the Italian subtitles at its Venice festival premiere) make the ridiculous decision to give English names to Zhang Xiaobo (“Bobby”) and Tan Xiaofei (“Kris”), which is simply distracting.

CREDITS

Presented by Huayi Brothers Media (CN). Produced by Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Beijing Seventh Image Movie & Media (CN).

Script: Guan Hu, Dong Runnian. Photography: Luo Pan. Editing: Zhang Wen. Music: Dou Peng. Song: Cui Jian. Art direction: Yang Haoyu. Costume design: Liang Tingting. Sound: Zhao Suchen. Action: Luo Lixian [Bruce Law], Luo Yimin [Norman Law]. Visual effects: Hu Xuan, Jin Yang (Bud Vision). Executive direction: Fei Zhenxiang.

Cast: Feng Xiaogang (Zhang Xuejun/Liu Ye/Mr. Six), Zhang Hanyu (Men San’er/Scrapper), Xu Qing (Xia/Chatterbox, Zhang Xuejun’s lover), Li Yifeng (Zhang Xiaobo/Bobby, Zhang Xuejun’s son), Wu Yifan [Kris Wu] (Tan Xiaofei/Kris), Liu Hua (Dengzhao’er/Lampshade), Liang Jing (Lampshade’s wife), Bai Jugang (Hou Xiaojie, Tan Xiaofei’s friend), Yu Hewei (Gong), Lian Yiming (Yanghuo’er), Lu Nuo (Biao), Guan Zongyang (Erye), Yin Li (doorkeeper), Ning Hao (caught young man), Jiang Shan (doctor), Zhang Ze (urban-control team member), Guo Jingfei (male passer-by), Zhang Luyi (drink-driving police officer), Zhao Yi (drunken boss), Ren Zhong (patrolman), Ma Yuan (policeman chasing drag racer), Fan Lei (Xiaoli), Tao Zeru (section chief, friend), Liang Tian (timber-mill friend), Su Xiaoming (gaming-hall boss lady, friend), Sha Jingchang (car-repair boss), Shuai Xiaohong (company boss, friend), Hu Xiaoguang (friend on bus), Li Yu (small flat owner’s wife), Zhang Yishan (Yellow Hair, Zhang Xiaobo’s friend), Ye Qing (Yanghuo’er’s employee), Yu Ailei (thief), Wang Yuan, Yiyang Qianxi, Wang Junkai (hospital volunteer singers), Shang Chengcen (Tan Xiaofei’s girl), Batu (young guy in gaming shop), Cao Lu (drink-driving police officer), Bao Hongbiao (drunk with wallet), Shen Ao (patrolwoman), Guo Xiaoxiao (drunk), Liu Di (tourist), Li Lin (crying woman), Wang Guan (car driver), Wang Ce (young boy’s father), Du Ka’ni (young girl), Jin Yang (waiting man), Chen Ting (female passer-by), Song Jiateng (lame man), Tao Yang (woman in corner shop), Liu Kaifei (night-shop friend), Feng Jia (female tattooist), Chi Qiang (plainclothes policeman), Wu Jinyan (Zheng Hong), Wang Yuzheng (policeman chasing drag racer), Zhang Shu (supermarket friend), Ma Weifu (high-school teacher friend), Zhao Yansong (policeman maintaining order), Meng Zhaozhong (policeman giving advice), Zhao Mingyi (onlooker), Yang Xu (lady holding cat), He Xin (young doctor), Zhang Ting (Xiao, doctor), Tian Yu (A&E doctor), Tong Lei (young Zhang Xuejun), Ding Wu (male passer-by), Du Jinhan (urban youth).

Premiere: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition, Closing Film), 12 Sep 2015.

Release: China, 24 Dec 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 15 Sep 2015.)