My Country, My Parents
我和我的父辈
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 157 mins.
Directors: Wu Jing 吴京 (I), Zhang Ziyi 章子怡 (II), Xu Zheng 徐峥 (III), Shen Teng 沈腾 (IV).
Rating: 7/10.
Only four stories this time but the quality is high, on an overall level with last year’s My People My Homeland.
STORY
China. I: Windriders 乘风. After a massive sweeping-up campaign by Japanese general Okamura since May 1942, Chinese troops have been ordered to stop harvesting and sabotage activities and instead break out from being encircled, as their location may well have been divulged to the enemy. The plan is to meet at the Ziyu river the following dawn. One group, the Eighth Route Army’s Jizhong cavalry regiment commanded by Ma Renxing (Wu Jing), comes across a ruined village where they find a heavily pregnant woman (Zhang Tian’ai), plus elders and children, hiding underground. Ma Renxing decides to take all 52 people with him, but sends ahead two of his regiment, the trusted Wang Nairong (Li Guangjie) and young Huang Rui (Wei Chen). The group is strafed by Japanese planes. That night Ma Renxing sends ahead three more of his regiment, including his son Ma Chunfeng (Wu Lei). But then he sees a large Japanese armoured division, led by Okamura, coming directly his way. II: Poem 诗. A desert village somewhere in western China, 1969. Shi Ruhong (Huang Xuan) and his wife Yu Kaiying (Zhang Ziyi) both work on propellants at the nearby R&D base for a third-stage rocket motor for the CZ-1 launch vehicle to be used on China’s first satellite. The couple have a nine-year-old son (Yuan Jinhui) and younger daughter, Shi Tiannuo (Ren Sinuo). Their work is dangerous and there have been several explosions at the base. Other children in the village say the son’s father makes firecrackers; Shi Ruhong tells him he’s actually a poet, and promises to write a poem for him. One day there’s another explosion at the base and Shi Ruhong doesn’t come home for dinner. Other children also report the same, so they all decide to go to the base to look for their fathers. Yu Kaiying looks at the sheet of paper that Shi Ruhong left with her for for his son. Work continues to solve the propellant problem, and then, during a heavy storm that floods the village, the son discovers the truth about Shi Ruhong. III: Ad Man 鸭先知. Shanghai, Oct 1978. Zhao Pingyang (Xu Zheng) is popular in his neighbourhood for his money-saving ideas and helping the community. But he also makes predictions about the future that no one believes, so he’s been nicknamed the “duck prophet” 鸭先知. Zhao Pingyang is the sales manager for a factory making medicinal wine; at school, his son, Zhao Xiaodong (Han Haolin), praises him in an essay called “My Father”. However, another pupil, his neighbour Fattie (Zhao Shengxiang), says it’s all lies, that Zhao Pingyang used to sell duck eggs and is a failure as a sales manager, having bought all the stock himself and stored it in his home. Zhao Pingyang’s wife (Song Jia) is threatening divorce because of the boxes piled everywhere. Zhao Xiaodong feels ashamed but his father says he has an idea how to sell the stock. That doesn’t prove very successful, but then he has a revolutionary idea that will change the country’s TV for ever. IV: Go Youth 少年行. Shenzhen, 17 Jun 2021. Xing Yihao (Shen teng), a flying android from 2050 Beijing, lands on the roof of a block of flats where a young boy, Xiaoxiao (Hong Lie), who’s interested in technology, lives with his mother (Ma Li). Xiaoxiao takes a blue ball that’s part of the android’s mechanism for returning to the future, so Xing Yihao pursues the boy to school to get it back. The class bully, Wang Mingtu (Zhou Qingyun), tries to steal the ball from Xiaoxiao. When Xing Yihao collapses in the rain, Xiaoxiao takes him home and learns he’s from the future as part of a time-travel experiment. Xiaoxiao’s mother thinks Xing Yihao is a blind date who’s into cosplay. Next day Xing Yihao accompanies Xiaoxiao to his school’s Parents’ Day, pretending to be the boy’s father who works in AI development. Thanks to Xing Yihao’s help, Xiaoxiao wins all the races, but then things start to go wrong.
REVIEW
The third in the series of annual portmanteau films released during the Mainland’s National Day holidays, My Country, My Parents 我和我的父辈 doesn’t have as light a tone overall as last year’s My People My Homeland 我和我的家乡 (2020) but is just as easy a sit and much more consistent in quality than the first in the series, My People, My Country 我和我的祖国 (2019). Once again, the overall running-time is some two-and-a-half hours but the number of stories has again been reduced, this time to a mere four, compared with Country’s seven and Homeland’s five. Each episode, therefore, gets a good bite of the apple, averaging roughly 37 minutes each, allowing plenty of time to get acquainted with its characters. And with no overall theme, apart from China’s generational development, there’s a wide range of differing material. However, it hasn’t halted the gradual box-office slide of the series, which began with Country’s mega RMB3.17 billion and then slipped to Homeland’s RMB2.82 billion last year. At a “mere” RMB1.46 billion after five weeks, Parents is the commercially weakest of the three – though still extremely sturdy compared with most other Mainland movies. [Final tally was just under RMB1.48 billion.]
This time there’s no supervising director credited, only a creative producer for the whole thing: the reliable Huang Jianxin 黄建新, who had the same role on Country. In fact, with only four stories – of which three are in proven, capable hands – there was really no need for a supervising director, and the different genres (war movie, family drama, backstreets comedy, sci-fi fable) complement each other with their emphasis on generational continuity.
The simplest and most straightforward is the opener, Windriders 乘风, directed by and starring Wu Jing 吴京, 47, the Mainland’s current all-purpose hero who was also top-billed in Korean War blockbuster The Battle at Lake Changjin 长津湖, released the same day. A standard story of WW2 heroics by a small cavalry regiment versus the Japanese, Wu brings his usual patriotic and kindly screen persona to bear on its leader, contrasted by boyish Wu Lei 吴磊 (Upcoming Summer 盛夏未来, 2021) as his conflicted but finally loyal son, whose name, Chengfeng, gives the story its title in Chinese and English. The action is well-staged (especially the final charge against the enemy), other performances solid, and the music likewise, with no surprises.
The two comic tales are in similarly experienced hands and deliver as expected. Comedian/film-maker Xu Zheng 徐峥, 49, who contributed one of the best episodes in Country, again uses the backstreets of his native Shanghai for Ad Man 鸭先知, a witty yarn about a fast-talking salesman (Xu himself) who stumbles across the concept of TV advertising – in late 1970s, ad-free China. (The episode’s Chinese title actually means “Duck Prophet”, the local community’s nickname for our bullshitting hero.) Xu shows some excellent chemistry with busy child actor Han Haolin 韩昊霖 as his ashamed but finally proud son, and there’s plenty of good cameos by people like Song Jia 宋佳 as the hero’s exasperated wife, Ou Hao 欧豪 as a cameraman, Zhang Yuqi 张雨绮 as a fat kid’s mother, and even director Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 as a TV station’s president.
The other comic tale is in the hands of 42-year-old comedian/film-maker Shen Teng (Warm Hug 温暖的抱抱, 2020; Hi, Mom 你好，李焕英, 2021), here making his debut as a film director with Go Youth 少年行, an offbeat tale, written by Lin Bingbao 林炳宝 (who co-wrote Shen’s hit Hello Mr. Billionaire 西虹市首富, 2018), of the friendship between a time-travelling android from the future and a tech-obsessed boy in present-day Shenzhen. With his typical expressive inexpressiveness, Shen sends up the whole daft premise (as well as gung-ho youth pictures in general) as the android who seems to represent the future but is actually extremely vulnerable to the simplest of things. Hong Lie 洪烈 is okay as the kid, and there’s a witty cameo by Shen’s Mahua FunAge 开心麻花 colleague Ma Li 马丽 as the boy’s mother. At 39 minutes the episode is a little too long for its content but is a solid enough start by Shen as a director, with help from regular d.p. Sun Ming 孙明.
Also making a debut behind the camera is actress Zhang Ziyi 章子怡, 42, in the film’s strongest and emotionally most trenchant episode, Poem 诗, a tale of family ties and secrets at a desert space-research site during the Cultural Revolution. Starting with an amazing travelling shot through the dusty village that lasts almost two minutes, it then abandons any further visual gymnastics in favour of an apparently simple, but delicately lit, style – courtesy of noted Taiwan camerawoman Xu Jingping 余静萍 (SoulMate 七月与安生, 2016, Better Days 少年的你, 2019) – that evokes both period (1969) and locale (western desert) as well as emotions. The script, by Li Yuan 李媛 (SoulMate, Better Days), has a subliminal structure that evokes the episode’s title, blending the world of scientists engaged in dangerous research with that of children, especially a couple’s young son, and not spelling everything out in too literal terms.
It’s an impressive directing debut by Zhang, who also plays the scientist wife, backed up by strong support from Huang Xuan 黄轩 (Only Cloud Knows 只有芸知道, 2019) as her colleague/husband. But like the other episodes it’s let down by a tacked-on ending that brings the story up-to-date and shows how much the country has progressed since the days of the story. This over-gilding of the lily after the episode has already made its point was also noticeable in some of the other films’ stories. Throughout, music is well-deployed, and warm scoring in the final two episodes helps give some emotional warmth to the comedy. Period design is acute, especially in the 1970s Shanghai tale.
CREDITS
Presented by China Film (CN).
Script: Yu Baimei, Zhang Yan (I); Li Yuan (II); He Keke, Xu Zheng, Hua Weilin (III); Lin Bingbao (IV). Photography: Li Yaohui [Lai Yiu-fai] (I); Yu Jingping (II); Cao Yu (III); Sun Ming (IV). Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai] (I); Li Dianshi (II); Zhou Xiaolin (III); Tan Xiangyuan (IV). Music: Yu Fei (I); Zhang Yilin (II); Chen Weijun (III); Peng Fei (IV). Art direction: Huo Tingxiao (I); Lin Chaoxiang (II); Liang Honghu (III); Lin Jianwei (IV). Styling: Yang Dan (I); Liu Xiaoli (II); Lei Shuyu (III); Wu Lilu [Dora Ng] (IV). Sound: Wang Yu, Wang Yuerong, Zhao Nan. Action: Yuan Heping (I); Luo Lixian [Bruce Law] (IV). Visual effects: Yao Qi, Huang Yunfeng, Wu Shijie, Li Geng.
Cast: I: Wu Jing (Ma Renxing), Wu Lei (Ma Chengfeng, Ma Renxing’s son), Zhang Tian’ai (Da Chunzi, pregnant woman), Li Guangjie (Wang Nairong), Yu Ailei (Song Futing), Wei Chen (Huang Rui, young soldier), Bainarisu (Shanhouzi/Monkey), Jiang Shui (Rangzi), Lu Chang’en (veteran soldier), Zhang Hengrui (Lv Bu). II: Zhang Ziyi (Yu Kaiying, mother), Huang Xuan (Shi Ruhong, father), Yuan Jinhui (son), Ren Sinuo (Shi Tiannuo, daughter), Qing Hai (adult Shi Tiannuo), Chen Daoming (adult son), Peng Yuchang (assistant), Du Jiang (son’s birth father), Li Naiwen (Zhang Xiaoping), Geng Le (chief engineer). III: Xu Zheng (Zhao Pingyang), Han Haolin (Zhao Xiaodong, son), Song Jia (Han Jingya, Zhao Pingyang’s wife), Ou Hao (Xiaoma, ad cameraman), Zhang Yuqi (Fattie’s mother), Jiao Shengxiang (Fattie), Fan Yujie (Xiaomei), Zhang Jianya (Grandpa Jiang), Zhang Zhihua (Grandma Jiang), Zhang Guoqiang (medicine factory head), Ning Li (Feng, newsreel director), Hu Ke (wife buying medicine), Sha Yi (husband buying medicine), Ma Shuliang (doctor), Cao Kefan (TV station managing director), Wan Qian (sales assistant), Zu Feng (adult Zhao Xiaodong), Zhang Yimou (TV station president). IV: Shen Teng (Xing Yihao), Ma Li (Ma Daiyu, Xiaoxiao’s mother), Hong Lie (Xiaoxiao), Lamuyangzi [Li Jiaqi] (Xiaoxiao’s teacher), Ai Lun (Wang Mingtu’s athletic father), Chang Yuan (4S shop manager), Li Xuejian (old scientist), Zhang Xiaofei (pupil’s mother), Wu Yuhan (adult Xiaoxiao), Zhou Qingyun (Wang Mingtu), Wang Chengsi (pupil’s father), Song Yang (school security guard), Li Haiyin (pupil’s mother). Others: Wu Haochen (Da), A Nan (Da Zuo), Gong Yixing (Xiaohe), Zhang Yunhao (Sankui), Shi Jiyuna (Xiaohu).
Release: China, 30 Sep 2021.