On the Balcony
阳台上
China, 2019, colour, 1.85:1, 99 mins.
Director: Zhang Meng 张猛.
Rating: 5/10.
Study of a young loner and a girl he spies on never catches fire dramatically or emotionally.
STORY
Shanghai, the present day, autumn. The teenage Zhang Yingxiong (Wang Qiang) lives with his unemployed father (Yao Peide) and part-time housekeeper mother (Wang Yaqin) in an alleyway area due for redevelopment as a public park. He spends his time idly roaming around or playing videogames. His grumpy father rejects the official compensation offered by Lu Zhiqiang (Xu Jiangning), a housing board official in charge of the demolition, and subsequently dies from the stress. Zhang Yingxiong and his mother temporarily stay with her brother (Gu Xin), his wife (Xie Chengying) and young son (Zhao Jiahao) in their small flat, and Zhang Yingxiong’s mother urges her son to find some kind of work. After spotting Lu Zhiqiang in a corner shop one night, Zhang Yingxiong follows him home. He later finds he can see the block from a spy hole at the back of a fast-food restaurant opposite, and sees a young woman (Zhou Dongyu) on the balcony of Lu Zhiqiang’s flat. He gets a job at the restaurant and continues to spy on the flat, intrigued by the girl who seems to be Lu Zhiqiang’s daughter and following her as she aimlessly walks through the streets one day. After a month he passes his trial period at the restaurant and buys some binoculars. A work colleague, Shen Zhong (Cao Rui), catches him spying on the girl. Zhang Yingxiong has bought a knife, and has vague plans to take his revenge on Lu Zhiqiang, whom he blames for his father’s death. Meanwhile, Shen Zhong invites him to move into a flat he shares with several others, and the two get to know each other better. Unlike Zhang Yingxiong, he’s not a native Shanghaier and feels resentful he hasn’t done better in life since moving to the big city.
REVIEW
A young loner becomes obsessed with the daughter of a man he blames for his father’s death in On the Balcony 阳台上, a modest entry in the bumpy career of writer-producer-director Zhang Meng 张猛, 44, whose most notable feature (of the four released) still remains the offbeat comedy The Piano in a Factory 钢的琴 (2010). With almost none of the black humour that Zhang’s films usually contain, and with a rather lopsided teaming of newcomer Wang Qiang 王锵 alongside established actress Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨, Balcony never catches fire either dramatically or emotionally, and could have worked just as well as a half-hour-or-so short. Box office was a tiny RMB4 million.
As he showed in Everybody’s Fine 一切都好 (2016) – a remake of Italian heartwarmer Stanno tutti bene (1990) – Zhang is not at his best when dealing with emotions rather than black humour, and the characters in Balcony are especially difficult to become engaged with. The central figure is a taciturn youth who seems to have no friends and spends his time playing videogames, while his pal at work (in a friendship that seems decidedly one-way) is a rough diamond from the provinces who’s also vaguely larcenous. The youth’s mother (played okay by Wang Yaqin 王雅琴) is a sympathetic figure but doesn’t have much of a role apart from swallowing her disappointment at how her son has turned out, and the man whom the boy blames for his father’s death only gets one scene, early on, with dialogue.
Amongst all these characters, Zhou’s girl-woman exists in a kind of dreamy haze, as spied on by the young guy and with almost no dialogue to express herself (for a reason later divulged). Well cast as she is for such a role, the star presence of Zhou (who was also one of the film’s financiers) actually unbalances the film, as the main dramatic thrust is more between the boy and his male work colleague rather than between the boy and the girl. As the two guys, Wang and dopey character actor Cao Rui 曹瑞 (The Way of the Bug 猛虫过江, 2018) establish a kind of chemistry as they chat, lark around and bum their way along, seen at its best in a semi-surreal sequence in an abandoned ship where they sing of their lost dreams. It’s the closest the film comes to the spirit of Piano, and is also set in a similar kind of decaying industrial landscape.
This strong relationship overshadows the boy’s obsession with the girl which, in the script by Zhang’s regular collaborator Liu Ya 刘雅 (adapting a 2010 short story by Shanghai writer Ren Xiaowen 任晓雯), doesn’t gain any kind of similar dramatic traction. Ren has stated that her story (see cover of 2013 book version, left) is about “demolition” – i.e. the loss of one’s past – and it could be said that Liu’s screenplay mirrors that through the rootlessness of Wang and Cao’s characters, both of whom are burdened by past parental mistakes. But Zhou’s character doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere.
However, even the relationship between the two workmates isn’t strong enough to support a 90-minute feature. Balcony starts drifting halfway through, as the central character, who’s constantly being told by people to “man up”, is revealed to be nothing more than a serial under-achiever. There’s a point where the film promises to become a study of a lonely, introverted obsessive who could turn out to be a killer, but even that is a false trail.
Camerawork by Shanghai d.p. Luo Dong 罗冬 (who also directed period drama New York New York 纽约纽约, 2016) shows a natural feel for the city in muggy autumn, with occasional dreamier stuff centred on Zhou’s appearances. Fretted music for several strolling scenes also has a fresh feel. Most of the dialogue is in Shanghainese, underlining the film’s verismo setting.
Balcony was shot in Shanghai during Oct-Nov 2017 and was originally set to be released in Jun 2018. Seemingly for artistic/commercial reasons, it was delayed until spring 2019. Zhang still has two features that have yet to see the light of day – The Uncle Victory 胜利, which was shot in 2013 but has so far had just a jury-only screening at the 2014 Shanghai Film Festival (due to its male star Huang Haibo 黄海波 being convicted of a sex charge), and zombie comedy Guns and Kidneys 枪炮腰花, starring Wang Qianyuan 王千源, which was shot prior to Balcony in 2016.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Xinying Yinghua (Beijing) Film & TV Media Holdings (CN), Shanghai Enjoyment Film (CN), Zhou Dongyu Film & TV Culture Communication Xinli Workshop (CN).
Script: Liu Ya. Short story: Ren Xiaowen. Photography: Luo Dong. Music: Hou Wenbo, Jared Meeker. Music supervision: Yu Fei. Art direction: Fu Yingzhang. Styling: Sun Weiran. Sound: Shan Jian.
Cast: Wang Qiang (Zhang Yingxiong), Zhou Dongyu (Lu Shanshan), Wang Yaqin (Feng Xiujuan, Zhang Yingxiong’s mother), Yao Peide (Zhang Suqing, Zhang Yingxiong’s father), Shen Jie (Yu, bath-house attendant), Zheng Jixue (Zhang Baogen), Guo Yongzhen (police registrar), Liao Minxing (policeman), Huang Yajie (Qian Li), Xu Jiangning (Lu Zhiqiang), Gu Xin (Feng Baogang, Zhang Yingxiong’s uncle), Xie Chengying (Zhang Yingxiong’s aunt), Zhao Jiahao (Zhang Yingxiong’s cousin), Li Keru (Xiaoyan, restaurant cashier), Zhu Liqun (woman on sixth floor), Zhou Songbin (optician), Cao Rui (Shen Zhong), Liu Qian (Luo, restaurant manager), Jia Bo (cook), Li Chao (Song Fang, Lu Shanshan’s “husband”), Zhong Zixin (Yaoyao, Song Fang’s girlfriend).
Release: China, 15 Mar 2019.