Breathing
你在哪
China, 2016, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 100 mins.
Director: Fan Haolun 樊昊仑.
Rating: 4/10.
Despite a convincing lead, this child-abduction drama is let down by its bumpy script and technique.
STORY
A town in Henan province, central China, the present day. Chief detective Huo Yan (Fan Haolun) is leading the stakeout of a hotel as part of an investigation into a cross-border child-trafficking ring. Young policeman Yatong (Pang Yunong) goes in to check the room of suspect Guo Heng (Yan Haoze) and is wounded when Guo Heng shoots him and escapes. Some time later, the police find Guo Heng shot dead by a river. During a public holiday, textile-factory worker Wang Nan (Jing Ke) and her young daughter Liu Xiaoyu (Jiao Enxi) are having a day out at a temple fair with Wang Nan’s work colleague Liang Xiaoxiao (Zhou Yunru). That same day, the child-traffickers steal two children from a nearby village. When Liu Xiaoyu runs off on her own at the fair, she also is snatched. After searching everywhere and alerting the police, Wang Nan goes to visit her onetime husband Liu Fei (Gao Shuang), a petty criminal from whom she separated, taking their daughter with her. He’s not in; instead, Huo Yan and his sidekick Haiyang (Zhao Jun) arrive, having found out that Guo Heng was in business with Liu Fei and that Liu Xiaoyu has been abducted by the same gang of child traffickers. Huo Yan gives Wang Nan a lift back to her flat but, as soon as he’s gone, she catches a taxi. Later, Wang Nan takes a room in the same hotel the police were staking out and asks Liang Xiaoxiao to come over, stay in the room and call a certain telephone number at exactly 22:00, saying “the shipment has arrived”. Meanwhile, Wang Nan waits outside the hotel and follows a car to a scrapyard on the edge of town.
REVIEW
A child-trafficking drama set in a nondescript town in Henan province, indie movie Breathing 你在哪 keeps on promising to be better than it ever is. TV actor Fan Haolun 樊昊仑, 37, here making his debut as a writer-director, has some good ideas but is unable to sustain them for very long due to the shortcomings of his own screenplay and lack of experience behind the camera. As it stands, the film is notable for some occasonally quirky touches, a realistically glammed-down performance by TV actress Jing Ke 景珂 as a kidnapped girl’s mother with a backstory of her own, and solid support by Fan himself as the detective in charge of the case. Shot in late 2015 and released locally two years later, Breathing made no impression at the box office (RMB2 million).
A onetime rhythmic gymnast and dancer (plus Fan’s real-life wife), Jing, aka Liang Jingke 梁镜珂, played the battling mother in autistic-child indie drama Destiny 喜禾 (2016) and is equally convincing here as a dowdy factory worker bringing up her young daughter on her own after separating from an abusive, no-good husband. Unlike, say, fellow child-abduction drama Dearest 亲爱的 (2014), the film hardly goes into the gang’s m.o. or parents’ grief; Breathing, like its budget, is much leaner and more practical. Background details about the mother are only fleetingly shown in flashbacks; instead, she’s portrayed via her everyday life with her daughter and her friendship with a tomboyish work colleague (Zhou Yunru 周韵茹, good). Fan’s script gradually merges her story with a police investigation into child trafficking – in a bumpy way that could be deliberate or just poor structure. Either way, attempts to tweak the genre and to play around with the film’s timeline never come to much, and the finale, set in a scrapyard, is slackly staged from both dramatic and action standpoints.
Jing seems to inhabit a part of the film that is entirely her own: she’s fine within her zone but Fan’s script gives her character few chances to interact with others in any major way. That’s a pity, as it cramps her own role as well as the broader emotional drama. As the chief cop, Fan himself remains distant; as his sidekick, Zhao Jun 赵骏, aka Shang Bai 上白, has one interesting scene where he’s shown to be a complete prick and is then largely ignored. It’s typical of a poorly organised film that might have measured up to its semi-arty ambitions after a couple more rewrites and with an experienced director on board. Widescreen photography by Taiwan d.p. Xu Zhijun 许之骏 (Thanatos, Drunk 醉•生梦死, 2015) accurately captures the quotidien feel of a workaday Mainland town; music, when it comes, is suprisingly emotional, considering the film’s downbeat tone.
Breathing is often credited as premiering at the 2016 Venice Film Festival but, though Fan and Jing attended a screening on 5 Sep as part of an industry event (Focus on China), the film was not part of the festival’s official programme. Its true public world premiere was a few days later in the Vancouver Chinese Film Festival. The original title means “Where Are You”.
CREDITS
Presented by Xi’an Huasong Film Culture Media (CN), Xi’an Central TV Culture (CN). Produced by Xi’an Huasong Film Culture Media (CN).
Script: Fan Haolun. Photography: Xu Zhijun. Editing: Jiao Jian, Sun Zhaomin, Zhou Jianyun. Music: Zomba Music. Art direction: Liang Yafan. Costumes: Li Shanshan. Styling: Han Xu. Sound: Li Jianghai, Yu Yongqi, Li Haijiang. Action: Fan Gengchan, Fan Changqiao. Executive direction: Gao Mingshen.
Cast: Jing Ke [Liang Jingke] (Wang Nan), Fan Haolun (Huo Yan), Shang Bai [Zhao Jun] (Haiyang, Huo Yan’s sidekick), Zhou Yunru (Liang Xiaoxiao), Jiao Enxi (Liu Xiaoyu, Wang Nan’s daughter), Yang Jin (Lu Yao, man with hat), Gao Shuang (Liu Fei, Wang Nan’s husband), Pang Yunong (Yatong), Yan Haoze (Guo Heng), Cheng Tianci (Huo Binbin, Huo Yan’s son), Liu Wendi (Hu Hu, hotel receptionist), Dai Changjiang (Da Gang, Liang Xiaoxiao’s male friend).
Premiere: Vancouver Chinese Film Festival, 9 Sep 2016.
Release: China, 30 Nov 2017.