Never Stop
超越
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 96 mins.
Director: Han Bowen 韩博文.
Rating: 6/10.
Mainland actor Zheng Kai is impressive as a onetime sports star, though the film as a whole is flawed.
STORY
Linghai city, Guangdong province, coastal southern China, 2019. Ten years ago, at the age of 19, Hao Chaoyue (Zheng Kai) won a gold medal in the 100 metres men’s sprint at the 2009 Asian Athletics Challenge. Afterwards, in the middle of the stadium, he proposed to TV presenter Qi Yueyue (Zhang Rongrong). Now he has a young son, Hao Siqi (Zhang Bowen), and for the past four years has run a small shop selling own-brand running shoes; but his suppliers cheated him, the shoes aren’t selling, he’s massively in debt and behind on his mortgage payments, and his marriage is breaking down. One day he returns home to find his wife has signed an agreement with the bank to sell their flat; but he tears up the document, kicks the banker (Zhang Dianlun) out, and tells her he’ll find the money within a week. (In 2008, already well known, Hao Chaoyue had been part of the team for that year’s National Youth Track & Field Championships training under former athlete Zhang Benchi [Cao Bingkun]. An eager young applicant, who’d always idolised Hao Chaoyue, was Wu Tianyi [Li Yunrui], who ended up winning a gold in the championships. Hao Chaoyue had vowed that he and Wu Tianyi would run together in the Olympics.) Wu Tianyi, now a major athletics star, is having doubts whether he can compete in the forthcoming Olympics. Since childhood he’s suffered from attention deficit disorder (ADD), for which he was prescribed pills, but has not been taking them recently. At a press conference he breaks down and leaves, embarrassing trainer/manager Zhang Benchi. He then discovers that Jia (Guo Tiecheng), an old trainer from Linghai, who’s now a district head, has been trying to get him to visit his home town to promote facilities there. Wu Tianyi insists on going, and is met off the boat by a very friendly Hao Chaoyue. Amid the big official welcome, Hao Chaoyue tries to get Wu Tianyi to promote his shop and shoes. Initially Wu Tianyi refuses but, when Hao Chaoyue confesses his dire situation, he signs, though he despises what his former hero has become. (In 2015, 11 months before the Rio Olympics, Hao Chaoyue had threatened to leave the team after an argument with the trainer. Realising Hao Chaoyue was jealous of his success, Wu Tianyi had challenged him to a race. Hao Chaoyue had won but he still walked away, telling Wu Tianyi he still hadn’t learned how to conserve his stamina as all he thought about was winning. Hao Chaoyue had moved to Florida and hired an American trainer, Anderson; but things didn’t work out, with Anderson blaming his poor performance partly on his age. One night, drunk and tired, Hao Chaoyue had crashed his car. Afterwards he’d officially retired, returned to China, and grandly announced he was going into business, like onetime gymnast-turned-sportswear billionaire Li Ning. But things didn’t work out as he dreamed. Meanwhile, Wu Tianyi had been exposed on the internet for allegedly taking proscribed medicine for his ADD.) Finally facing up to his abject failure, Hao Chaoyue agrees to divorce Qi Yueyue and to sell the flat to pay off their debts. He meets up for a roadside dinner with his longtime friends Wu Tianyi, Zhang Benchi, taekwondo player Xie Xiaofang (Zhang Lanxin) and weightlifter Niu Tiejun (Li Chen), during which everyone gets very drunk and speaks frankly.
REVIEW
Mainland actor Zheng Kai 郑恺, 35, who rose to film fame playing cocky young characters in comedies like Personal Tailor 私人订制 (2013), EX-Files 前任攻略 (2014) and Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back 前任2 备胎反击战 (2015), shows impressive depth in Never Stop 超越, as a onetime athletics star who’s now yesterday’s man and has a waistline to prove it. Despite some faults, it’s an interesting first theatrical feature by Han Bowen 韩博文, who previously directed Zheng in the hour-long online rom-com The Loop 无尽日 (2017) and who has gone on to work with him again in the action-crime TVD The Mask 也平凡, due out next month. One of several films dealing with sporting competitiveness (i.e. winning) that were released in the Mainland prior to the Tokyo Olympics, it hawled in RMB143 million, a respectable amount considering its uncommercial format, and just a few million below its other main contender, On Your Mark 了不起的老爸, a father-and-son light drama centred on marathon running that stars Wang Yanhui 王砚辉 and Zhang Youhao 张宥浩, and is directed by Malaysia’s Zhou Qingyuan 周青元 [Chiu Keng Guan] (Great Day 天天好天, 2011; The Journey 一路有你, 2013).
Shanghai-born Zheng, who studied at Shanghai Theatre Academy, has gradually broadened his range in recent years, notably in two costume dramas by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 – a small role in monster movie The Great Wall 长城 (2016) and a much bigger one in Shadow 影 (2018), as the duplicitous, seemingly weak king who dominates the finale. Never Stop, which he partly financed through his company Shanghai Cheetah Culture Media and on which he was also one of the creative producers 监制, cleverly combines his gift for straightfaced comedy with a more serious attempt at dramatic portrayal. Looking and moving exactly like a former athlete who’s since put on a few pounds, he’s utterly believable as a still-braggy guy who’s facing bankruptcy, divorce and obscurity while his onetime protege apparently goes from strength to strength.
The film was shot in Guangdong province during the winter of 2019/20, obviously with an eye on opening during the run-up to the original 2020 Tokyo Olympics; when the games were postponed until 2021, so was the film’s release, and the signs can still be seen in some of the film’s vague chronology. It’s a little confusing, especially given the multiple flashbacks to various points during the past decade and the film’s habit of simply sliding into flashbacks without any warning. Despite that, and other weaknesses in the screenplay by pseudonymous first-timer Jia Zifu 甲子复, Never Stop is still an involving portrait of what happens to athletes when they retire from competition but still have some of the flame that fired them in the first place.
Opening with the main character, a 19-year-old sprinter, winning a gold medal at some Asian games and then impulsively proposing to his girlfriend in the middle of the stadium, the film then jumps forward 10 years, to the present day, with him running a small shop selling own-brand running shoes but actually, for all his big talk, deeply in debt and with a young son and crumbling marriage. When his former protege, who idolised him, arrives back to promote their (fictional) hometown, past and present tensions collide in their relationship.
With his slight swagger, smooth talk and hint of a paunch, Zheng has his role down pat, and shows real depth in a crucial dinner scene, 70 minutes in, where he and his old athlete pals gather to finally share some home truths. It’s the standout scene in the whole film. As the onetime pupil who’s now surpassed his master, the epicene-looking Li Yunrui 李昀锐, 25, is barely up to the demands of his role opposite Zheng, though he does have a couple of convincingly explosive moments. As his trainer/manager, character actor Cao Bingkun 曹炳琨 brings some needed heft to that part of the story. For the rest, it’s disappointing to see the role of the wife (capably played by French-Taiwan actress Zhang Rongrong 张榕容 [Sandrine Pinna]) so scaled back, as well as that of a taekwondo pal, realistically played by real-life champ-turned-action babe Zhang Lanxin 张蓝心 (CZ12 十二生肖, 2012; Eternal Wave 密战, 2017). A little less of Zheng’s character would have improved the film’s dramatic balance a lot.
Director Han concentrates on the performances above all, cleverly concealing the artifice behind several sporting action scenes (and a car crash in the middle section). Technical credits are solid at all levels. Guangdong-born sprinter Su Bingtian 苏炳添, whose championship career seems to have partly inspired the film, was Zheng’s off-screen trainer. In a cameo at the end, former gymnast-turned-sportswear billionaire Li Ning 李宁 cameos as himself. The film’s title means “surpass” or “transcend”, and is also the given name of the main character, Hao Chaoyue.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Cheetah Culture Media (CN), Huayi Brothers Pictures (CN), Shenzhen Honghuan International Group (CN). Produced by Shanghai Cheetah Culture Media (CN).
Script: Jia Zifu, Li Bai. Photography: Liu Fan. Editing: Wang Yuan. Music: Dong Dongdong. Theme song: Dong Dongdong (music), Chen Xi (lyrics), Hu Xia (vocal). Art direction: Wang Jing. Costumes: Qian Guanyang. Styling: Yu Xiaoxi. Sound: Guo Hongwei, Wang Chong. Action: Sun Jingyan. Visual effects: Zhang Yiming, Song Peng (Beijing Dream Film Culture Media). Sports direction: Yang Guoqiang, Tao Yujia, Xu Yijun, Li Wenneng.
Cast: Zheng Kai (Hao Chaoyue), Li Yunrui (Wu Tianyi), Cao Bingkun (Zhang Benchi), Zhang Lanxin (Xie Xiaofang, taekwondo player), Zhang Rongrong [Sandrine Pinna] (Qi Yueyue, Hao Chaoyue’s wife), Li Chen (Niu Tiejun/Ju Tieniu, weightlifter), Jin Jing (fat girl), Fan Zhiyi (Fan, trainer), Tian Yu (doctor), Lu Peng (Lu, trainer), Guo Tiecheng (Jia, district head), Zhang Dianlun (Liu, bank employee), Han Bowen (courier), Zhang Xinyi (Xuxu), Zhang Bowen (Hao Siqi, Hao Chaoyue’s son), Hong Yike (Han Qing), Song Kexin (Wu Tianyi’s mother), Zhu Huige (Wu Tianyi’s father), Yuan Jinhui (infant Wu Tianyi), Sima Liyang (young Hao Chaoyue), Yao Xirui (young Wu Tianyi), Guo Shijun (weightlifting leader), Li Ning (himself).
Release: China, 12 Jun 2021.