Redemption

杀戒

China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.

Director: Zhu Qing 竹卿.

Supervising director: Zhang Jiarui 章家瑞.

Rating: 5/10.

Psychodrama centred on a child-custody battle is a bumpy ride dramatically.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. Xiao Likun (Liu Ye) manages a stud farm on the outskirts of the city. One day, his ex-wife Jiang Yue’e (Ni Ni) turns up, demanding her right to see their three-year-old son Xiao Lei (Jiang Yinsheng) whom Xiao Likun has custody of. Xiao Likun refuses, and says their son doesn’t want to meet her. (Strains in their relationship had started to appear when they visited his family of pork butchers in a Hebei village three months after their marriage. She’d immediately left, appalled at the rural conditions.) Jiang Yue’e then turns up at Xiao Likun’s flat, again demanding to know where Xiao Likun has hidden their son. They argue, and Xiao Likun writes some words to her on a newspaper. Jiang Yue’e subsequently takes him to court, demanding custody of their child on the grounds that Xiao Likun is an unfit parent. She cites as evidence the words on the newspaper which said he’d hidden their child away from her and he would like to kill her. (While Xiao Lei was still a baby, Xiao Likun had started to suffer from depression and became more and more suspicious that Jiang Yue’e was seeing other men. She also made him feel socially inadequate because of his rural background.) Meanwhile, at work Xiao Likun is also feeling pressured by the stud farm’s new head, Wang, as the business tries to develop internationally. (Xiao Likun had first been introduced to Jiang Yue’e by one of his staff, Wang Xiaojuan [Zhang Doudou]. She had explained to him that Jiang Yue’e, who was from an educated family and taught music at a kindergarten, had just been dumped by her rich boyfriend, Bai Xizhuang [Huang Baijun], and was in need of emotional support. Xiao Likun had romanced her with poetry, they’d quickly married, and she’d immediately become pregnant.) Xiao Likun’s behaviour at work becomes more and more unpredictable, even rowing with his friend Zhao Jingfeng (Wang Xun). As the custody hearing continues, he’s tipped over the edge by a sudden revelation.

REVIEW

A bumpy psychodrama that perpetually swings between well-crafted moments and over-cooked ones, Redemption 杀戒 marks an iffy directing debut by longtime TV producer Zhu Qing 竹卿, who also co-produced, co-wrote and handled the film’s styling. There’s a lack of assurance in the finished product that communicates itself to the viewer, with no clear dramatic arc through a story whose structure is already very complex. The same sense of uncertainty extends also to lead actors Liu Ye 刘烨 and Ni Ni 倪妮, whose playing veers from sensitive to hysterical.

Some of this uncertainty may stem from the movie’s fraught production, which initially saw the experienced Zhang Jiarui 章家瑞 (When Ruoma Was Seventeen 若玛的十七岁, 2002; The Road 芳香之旅, 2005; Distant Thunder 迷城, 2010) joining the project as supervising director 总导演 but later leaving during shooting. (On the print he’s credited in English as “on-set director” and in Chinese as “early/preliminary supervising director” 前期总导演. A vitriolic war of words has since been waged in the media between him and Zhu.) Zhang’s style can be seen in many sequences; in others it’s more debatable.

Adapted from the short story Bright Eyes 光眼 (2000) and novella Old Six 老六 (1997) by Hebei-born writer-TV producer Yu Shengli 俞胜利, the script is co-credited to veteran novelist Liu Heng 刘恒, who’s worked on several Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 films (Ju Dou 菊豆, 1990; The Story of Qiu Ju 秋菊打官司, 1992; The Flowers of War 金陵十三钗, 2011) as well as Assembly 集结号 (Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚, 2007). Apart from telling most of the story in flashback, it’s also full of flashbacks-within-flashbacks (announced by tinted footage that morphs into colour) that show the story of the couple’s romance and marriage in reverse order. Put simply, the effect is to slowly shift sympathies away from the husband (initally shown as the wounded party) and towards the wife (initially shown as a crazed harridan) – before then turning the tables again on the viewer in a surprise twist. It’s an ambitious undertaking which requires the audience to invest itself fully in the characters and the movie as a whole; the problem is that neither the uneven direction nor the sudden jerks in tone encourage this, and the whole subplot of a stud farm’s office politics is only sketchily developed.

As he’s shown in films like City of Life and Death 南京！南京！ (2009), Driverless 无人驾驶 (2010) and He-Man 英汉2  奉陪到底 (2011), Liu is a fine, versatile actor; but apart from a few intimate scenes with Ni he largely looks rudderless here. Nanjing-born Ni, 24, in only her second movie after the female lead in The Flowers of War, has striking looks but is more convincing playing nice than a mad-bitch-on-wheels. Zhang Doudou 张逗逗, 23, who also debuted as one of the whores in Flowers, comes through more strongly as the film proceeds, while comedian Wang Xun 王迅 is stuck in a goofy role as another employee at the stud farm. Technically the movie is professional, with d.p. Xu Wei 徐伟 (Esquire Runway 时尚先生, 2007; Lethal Hostage 边境风云, 2012) at his best in the country scenes rather than in plain interiors.

CREDITS

Presented by G-W Pictures (CN), Omnijoi Group (CN). Produced by Nanjing Lichuan Tongren Investment (CN), Beijing Zhenshan Meihui Picture (CN), Dow Sachs (Beijing) Management Consulting (CN), Hangzhou Chong Source of Culture & Arts Planning (CN).

Script: Liu Heng, Zhu Qing. Short story and novella: Yu Shengli. Photography: Xu Wei. Hong Kong photography: Pan Boyi. Editing: Zhang Yifan. Music: Wang Chao. Art direction: Li Wenbo. Styling: Zhu Qing. Sound: Lin Siyu. Artistic direction: Wang Qiang.

Cast: Liu Ye (Xiao Likun/Leo Shao), Ni Ni (Jiang Yue’e/Moony), Zhang Doudou (Wang Xiaojuan), Huang Baijun [Denny Huang] (Bai Xizhuang, Jiang Yue’e’s lover), Wang Xun (Zhao Jingfeng), Jiang Yinsheng (Xiao Lei/Shelly, Xiao Likun’s son), Yin Yanbin (Xiao Likun’s father), Sun Guitian (Xiao Likun’s mother), Zhao Zhigang (Xiao Lizhong), Hu Shanshan (Wu Chunping), Kong Bing (Jiang Yue’e’s father), Li Jun (Jiang Yue’e’s mother).

Premiere: Beijing Film Festival, 15 Apr 2013.

Release: China, 9 Jun 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 16 Jun 2013.)