Heaven in the Dark

暗色天堂

Hong Kong, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.

Director: Yuan Jianwei 袁剑伟.

Rating: 5/10.

Despite a strong performance by Zhang Xueyou [Jacky Cheung], this psychological drama feels artificial.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. At a smart party, Marco Du (Zhang Xueyou) by chance meets Michelle Chen (Lin Jiaxin); the two have not seen each other for almost five years. She has since married Paul (Zhu Baiqian), a priest in Boston, had a young daughter called Mira, and returned with Paul to Hong Kong. Despite Marco Du and Michelle Chen’s unease with each other, Paul insists they catch up together in a room alone. (When Marco Du and Michelle Chen first met, he was a media personality, balancing separate careers as as a priest in The Church of Truth – where he proved especially charismatic to many female followers – and as the head of a charity with a scheme for revolutionising international medical supplies. She was an assistant to his head of public relations, Huang Wanwan (Zhou Jiayi), and, fascinated by him, broke a rule of the charity that employees should not attend his church. Despite that, they gradually got to know each other through a series of chance meetings socially. Facing opposition to his scheme from governments and the pharmaceutical industry, and even by his own staff, Marco Fu is impressed by Michelle Chen’s commitment to his cause when her boss goes on holiday. She, in turn, appears to admire his spirit.) As the two talk alone, they start to argue: she wants him to return to the church, which he’s abandoned, as a sign of his remorse, while he wants her to explain what there is to forgive. (Before leaving for the U.K., she invited him on 8 Jun to dinner to thank him for everything. Afterwards they drove to a scenic spot and got drunk on wine. They ended up kissing spontaneously in his car, though she subsequently got out in anger and walked home. Next day she filed a charge against him of sexual harrassment by an employer. Marco Du was forced to hide out from the media at the home of a car mechanic friend [Su Zhiwei]. In court he was represented by a lawyer friend, Francis Li [Huang Qiusheng], who took a combative stance against Michelle Chen’s charge that was not to Marco Du’s liking.) Five years later, Marco Du, who has left the church and is now a jet-setting businessman, and Michelle Chen, who has “found” religion and wants his repentance, seem unable to reconcile their past history.

REVIEW

A strong performance by Hong Kong actor-singer Zhang Xueyou 张学友 [Jacky Cheung], as a priest-cum-businessman who’s accused of sexual harrassment by one of his staff, isn’t enough to dispel the artificiality that pervades Heaven in the Dark 暗色天堂 and ultimately prevents it from engaging the viewer as it should. Stir in an unconvincing performance by Taiwan Canadian actress Lin Jiaxin 林嘉欣 [Karena Lam] as the supposedly harrassed admirer, and an archly-dialogued script by writer-director Yuan Jianwei 袁剑伟 – Lin’s husband, making his feature debut after musicvideos and commercials – and Heaven ranks as an honourable failure with a few nice moments.

Vancouver-born Lin’s film career has been full of ups-and-downs ever since it began in the early 2000s, but her performance here is especially disappointing given the fine showing she gave as a grieving widow in Zinnia Flower 百日告别 (2015), her first major release after a long lay-off to have a family. In Heaven she doesn’t command the screen in a way that her character (and her co-star) requires to make the drama really stick. She’s fine in the early scenes as a shy, slightly klutzy fan of the charismatic priest but when the pivotal scene is eventually reached – an hour into the film, after a long lead-up – thereon she can’t make a convincing case for her character, who comes across as little more than an infatuated, borderline hysterical, reject. She’s not helped by the legal case hardly being examined in any depth and the appearance of veteran actor Huang Qiusheng 黄秋生 [Anthony Wong] in a strong supporting role as the priest’s lawyer. As a result of all this, the movie has a lop-sided bias and ends up seeming like a lot of fuss about nothing – hardly the intent of the original play (French Kiss 法吻, 2005, by Hong Kong writer Zhuang Meiyan 庄梅岩 [Candace Chong], 42), which was more rooted in psychology and religious belief.

The relationship between Lin and Zhang’s characters has weird echoes from the last time they worked together, early in the former’s career – the much more convincing July Rhapsody 男人四十 (2002), in which Zhang played a married teacher and Lin his flirtatious student. One of Hong Kong’s most under-rated actors, Zhang, as in Rhapsody, underplays his role as a charismatic priest-cum-crusader who knows the effect he has on some female admirers but is basically an honourable man, even if not above making mistakes. The script, however, never really examines the depth of his religious convictions in a way that makes his lapse understandable: he’s simply presented as a driven character who makes a silly error, rather than one whose religious beliefs are permeable or already waning.

Thanks to Lin’s low-key playing during the first half, several supporting actors – through no fault of their own – distract attention from the central relationship: TV actress Zhou Jiayi 周家怡 as the priest’s spikey PR, Spanish-Taiwan theatre actress Rosa Maria Velasco 韦罗莎 as one of his emotionally damaged flock, Wei Shiya 卫诗雅 as another female admirer, and actor-singer Su Zhiwei 苏志威 as a boisterous car-mechanic friend. Celebrity cameos – comedienne Zhuo Yunzhi 卓韵芝 [Vincci Cheuk] as a TV presenter, veteran stand-up comic Huang Zihua 黄子华 [Dayo Wong] as a courtroom spectator – also seem out of place in what should be an intense psychological drama.

Director Yuan turns in a good-looking product but without any special visual texture to support the central drama. Widescreen photography by Taiwan d.p. Yu Jingping 余静萍, who shot the far subtler Zinnia Flower, is OK but sometimes not too kind to Lin. Music is too on the nose: a song halfway through is a clumsy expression of emotional turbulence as Lin’s character walks the night streets.

Another of Zhuang’s plays, Murder in San José 圣荷西谋杀案 (2009), was filmed in 2017 as Fatal Visit. Directed by Pan Yuanliang 潘源良 [Calvin Poon] (Hi, Fidelity 出轨的女人, 2011) and starring Zheng Xiuwen 郑秀文 [Sammi Cheng], Cai Zhuoyan 蔡卓妍 [Charlene Choi] and Mainland actor Tong Dawei 佟大为, it has yet to be theatrically released. [It was finally sneak-shown in Hong Kong in Nov 2019, and was officially released there in Sep 2020.]

CREDITS

Presented by Emperor Film Production (HK). Produced by Twelfth Film (HK).

Script: Yuan Jianwei. Play: Zhuang Meiyan [Candace Chong]. Photography: Yu Jingping. Editing: Ye Wanting. Music: Gong Shuoliang, Feng Tingzheng. Production design: Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung]. Art direction: Li Guolin. Costume design: Ouyang Xia. Styling: Xi Zhongwen [Yee Chung-man]. Sound: Du Duzhi, Wu Shuyao, Du Juntang.

Cast: Zhang Xueyou [Jacky Cheung] (Rev. Du Tianming/Marco), Lin Jiaxin [Karena Lam] (Michelle Chen), Luo Lan (prosecuting lawyer), Huang Qiusheng [Anthony Wong] (Francis Li, defence lawyer), Wang Xi (Rev. Zhang), Su Zhiwei (Lin, car mechanic), Wei Shiya (Yi), Zhou Jiayi (Huang Wanwan/Jenny), Tai Chen [Zhai Kaitai] (new magistrate), Zhuo Yunzhi [Vincci Cheuk] (Zhang Aihua, TV presenter), Rosa Maria Velasco (Susanna), Zhu Baiqian (Paul, Michelle Chen’s husband), Huang Zihua [Dayo Wong], Li Zhuowen (courtroom spectators).

Release: Hong Kong, 24 Mar 2016.