The Shadow Play

风中有朵雨做的云

China, 2018, colour, 1.85:1, 125 mins.

Director: Lou Ye 娄烨.

Rating: 9/10.

Crackerjack whodunit thriller is Mainland director Lou Ye’s first film with an outwardly commercial flavour but, as usual, hardly conventional.

STORY

A city in Guangdong province, southern China, 14 Apr 2013. In the Central District a battle is underway between residents of apartment blocks marked for demolition and enforcers hired to clear the area. The residents are protesting against unfair compensation payments. Tang Yijie (Zhang Songwen), director of the Municipal Construction Committee, appeals to residents’ good sense in wanting such old buildings cleared, saying he once lived there. The neon sign of the redeveloper, Violet Gold Properties, run by Tang Yijie’s old friend Jiang Zicheng (Qin Hao), is destroyed and Tang Yijie himself is shouted down. With his assistant Wang (Wang Weishen), Tang Yijie visits one block and then goes on the roof alone. Soon afterwards his corpse is found on the ground, seemingly the result of suicide. Young detective Yang Jiadong (Jing Boran) is assigned to the case. (Tang Yijie and Jiang Zicheng’s friendship dated back to university in the mid-1980s when both courted fellow student Lin Hui [Song Jia], who had many affaires at the time. Tang Yijie later married Lin Hui, who had a daughter, Tang Xiaonuo, in 1992. She was educated in Hong Kong and Europe, and always preferred “Uncle Jiang”, who was kind to her after returning to the Mainland from becoming a successful entrepreneuer in Taiwan. Tang Xiaonuo [Ma Sichun] had always had a difficult relationship with her father, who physically abused Lin Hui and had her forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital.) Yang Jiadong is secretly told by Wang that he saw a third person that night in the building, a woman who looked like Lian Ayun (Chen Yanxi), Jiang Zicheng’s Taiwan business partner who disappeared in 2006. Yang Jiadong discovers that Lian Ayun paid for and signed Lin Hui’s discharge from the psychiatric hospital in 2000. (Jiang Zicheng had met Lian Ayun in Taiwan in 1998, when she was a nightclub singer in Ximending. Both, as well as Tang Yijie, had collected Lin Hui from the hospital. Jiang Zicheng had gone on to become phenominally successful back in the Mainland with his company Violet Gold Properties, which got the contract for the urban development programme in 2010 thanks to his connections with Tang Yijie.) Yang Jiadong goes to question Jiang Zicheng at a dinner, where the guests include Sun, a police captain who once investigated the suspicious traffic accident of Yang Jiadong’s father, Yang Jianjun, who is now mute in a nursing home. Sun tries to warn off Yang Jiadong. Lin Hui then drives Yang Jiadong to an old family property, where, after telling him of Tang Yijie’s abuse, she seduces him. Pictures of them appear on the internet and Yang Jiadong is suspended. He registers his disgust with Lin Hui for being set up – as does Tang Xiaonuo – and vows to pursue the case privately. Wang contacts Yang Jiadong again, with evidence of the third person, and the latter narrowly escapes being framed for Wang’s murder. On the run, Yang Jiadong is contacted by Lin Hui, who claims she’s also being used by Jiang Zicheng and gives him a passport and money to escape to Hong Kong. (Since 2004 Lin Hui had been in a relationship with Jiang Zicheng, about which Tang Yijie knew. In 2006, following an argument with Lian Ayun when he refused to okay a contract for Violet Gold Properties, Tang Yijie had revealed to her the fact of Jiang Zicheng’s affaire with Lin Hui. Suspecting Jiang Zicheng is actually Tang Xiaonuo’s biological father, Lian Ayun had told him she was going back to Taiwan and wanted 40% of the company’s shares, or else.) Now a fugitive in Hong Kong, Yang Jiadong contacts his father’s friend, Alex Lin (Chen Guanxi), now running a detective agency, and also Tang Xiaonuo, who takes him back to her flat. On the way, however, he’s identified by a policeman who alerts the authorities.

REVIEW

Four years after his powerful ensemble drama Blind Massage 推拿 (2014), Shanghai-born director Lou Ye 娄烨, 53, powers back with The Shadow Play 风中有朵雨做的云, a crackerjack whodunit thriller in which a young Mainland detective finds himself up against powerful business interests. Lou’s ninth feature, it’s his first with an outwardly commercial flavour, though his raw, noirish, hard-driven direction is as usual hardly conventional and from the start even his artier movies have often contained crime/mystery elements (Weekend Lover 周末情人, 1995; Suzhou River 苏州河, 2000; Purple Butterfly 紫蝴蝶, 2003; Mystery 浮城谜事, 2012). Quality cast in depth, complexly structured via multiple flashbacks, and full of powerfully drawn characters by regular writers Mei Feng 梅峰 and Lou’s documentarian wife Ma Yingli 马英力, plus Beijing Film Academy graduate Qiu Yujie 邱玉洁, it grips from head to tail, with no emotional downtime across two hours. Though the main role is played (in a major change of image) by young actor-singer Jing Boran 井柏然, 29, like many of Lou’s movies it’s a truly ensemble work and one in which the production itself is the star.

Shot in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2016, it was only passed for release in late 2018, thus becoming another Lou film delayed by censorship negotiations. (He’s since shot his 10th feature, Saturday Fiction 兰心大剧院, a 1940s Shanghai spy drama starring Gong Li 巩俐 and Taiwan’s Zhao Youting 赵又廷 [Mark Chao], co-written by Ma.) Vancouver-born actor-singer Chen Guanxi 陈冠希 [Edison Chen] was among the cast – his official return to film-making after a sex-photo scandal in early 2008 – and appears to play the Hong Kong private detective Alex Lin, though his face is largely obscured in a similar way to that of Taiwan actor-singer Ke Zhendong 柯震东 in Tiny Times 4 小时代  灵魂尽头 (2015) following Ke’s Mainland drugs detention in Aug 2014.

All that aside, there’s no lack of energy as the film sweeps the viewer up from the start with restless, swooping photography across an unnamed city in Guangdong province, southern China, where, in April 2013, a riot is taking place in an apartment complex due for demolition in the Central District. As protestors fight imported muscle, Tang Yijie, director of the Municipal Construction Committee, appeals for calm, citing his own bona fides as a onetime resident and even emotionally slipping into Cantonese. Soon afterwards he’s found dead, apparently falling from one of the buildings. Foul play is rumoured, with the name of the director’s college pal, developer Jiang Zicheng who once dated Tang Yijie’s wife, mentioned. Young detective Yang Jiadong (Jing) finds himself targeted by powerful forces but doesn’t give up, even after being framed, suspended, and on the run in Hong Kong.

As the plot unfolds, flashbacks unveil the tangled emotional history between Tang Yijie, his wife and daughter, and Jiang Zicheng and his Taiwan partner, a onetime nightclub singer who mysteriously disappeared seven years earlier. It’s the kind of film whose intensity and complexity demands considerable concentration by its audience; but it’s a rewarding journey, with a plot that does make sense and climaxes with a white-knuckle confrontation between the cop and the baddies, plus a final twist that grippingly restages the opening murder and adds a coda in Hong Kong. Phew.

Performances are strong in depth, led by Lou regular Qin Hao 秦昊 as the ruthless, flashy Jiang Zicheng and Song Jia 宋佳 (aka Xiao Song Jia 小宋佳) in her most nuanced role to date as Tang Yijie’s wife who may or may not be equally villainous. Between the two, Taiwan’s Chen Yanxi 陈妍希 [Michelle Chen], in a tougher role for a change, is strong as the Taiwan business partner and Mainland actress Ma Sichun 马思纯 (so good in SoulMate 七月与安生, 2016) suitably conflicted as the daughter. Though less starry – and cleverly cast as such – Zhang Songwen 张颂文, often in comic roles, is equally fine as the MCC director whose private neuroses fuel the whole plot.

Lou’s films have always been keenly shot and edited, and no less here. Working for the first time with East Asia-based US d.p. Jake Pollock 包轩鸣 (Monga 艋舺, 2010; SoulMate), Lou serves up a mobile visual dish whose look, thanks to the involving story, never seems affected for its own sake nor is needlessly tiring. Starting with swooping shots across urban landscapes – which return prior to the final confrontation – much of the film is shot in gritty, noirish, handheld images, superbly assembled by Mainland editor Zhu Lin (Blind Massage; Dying to Survive 我不是药神, 2018). Her editing of the final action set-to is a showpiece alone. Supporting both is the plangent score by Iceland’s Jóhann Jóhannsson and Denmark’s Jonas Colstrup, both of whom worked on Blind Massage; effective art direction and costuming by Zhong Cheng 钟诚 (Nezha 少女哪吒, 2014) and Germany-based Mai Linlin 迈琳琳 [LinLin May] (Mystery); and, especially, the action staging by Hong Kong aces Luo Lixian 罗礼贤 (Bruce Law] and Luo Yimin 罗义民 [Norman Law].

The Chinese title literally means “In the Wind Are Clouds Made by Rain”. The film was shot under the title Hell Lover 地狱恋人; in late 2018 its English title was temporarily changed to Cloud in the Wind.

CREDITS

Presented by Dream Factory (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Dream Factory (Beijing) (CN).

Script: Mei Feng, Qiu Yujie, Ma Yingli. Photography: Jake Pollock. Editing: Zhu Lin. Music: Jóhann Jóhannsson, Jonas Colstrup. Art direction: Zhong Cheng. Costumes: Mai Linlin [LinLin May]. Sound: Fu Kang, Steve Miller. Action: Luo Lixian [Bruce Law], Luo Yimin [Norman Law].

Cast: Jing Boran (Yang Jiadong), Song Jia (Lin Hui), Qin Hao (Jiang Zicheng), Ma Sichun (Tang Xiaonuo), Zhang Songwen (Tang Yijie), Chen Yanxi [Michelle Chen] (Lian Ayun), Chen Guanxi [Edison Chen] (Alex Lin), Guo Jia (library manager), Niu Busi [Herman Lau] (Chaozhou businessman), Huang Yifan (Eva), Hu Ling (Hu, detective-agency client), Wang Weishen (Wang, Tang Yijie’s assistant).

Premiere: Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (Golden Horse Awards Nominated Films), 9 Nov 2018.

Release: China, 4 Apr 2019.