Across the Furious Sea
涉过愤怒的海
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 142 mins.
Director: Cao Baoping 曹保平.
Rating: 3/10.
Overheated drama-thriller about a father hunting his daughter’s killer is ludicrously written and played.
STORY
Huanzi island, somewhere off the coast of China, 2018. Jin Yunshi (Huang Bo), head of a fishing fleet, hears from his ex-wife Gu Hong (Yan Ni) that their beloved teenage daughter Jin Li’na (Zhou Yiran), who was living with her father and moved in Apr 2016 to Japan on a two-year visa to live and work, has gone missing. Jin Yunshi rushes to Japan, where he learns from his daughter’s former roommate, Shen Xiaolin (Sun Anke), that Jin Li’na had a Chinese boyfriend, Li Miaomiao (Zhang Youhao), and could be staying with him at Kyoto university. Jin Yunshi goes there and only too late realises that a young man he speaks to is actually Li Miaomiao. While chasing him, he learns from Gu Hong that Jin Li’na’s body has been found. (Li Miaomiao was into cosplay, and the two had met met in 2017, on her birthday, 5 May. She had been stabbed to death after being confined in a small cupboard and had tried to call her father minutes before she died.) Jin Yunshi hears from the Japanese police that Li Miaomiao has already left Japan. Back in China, Jin Yunshi breaks into the home of Li Miaomiao’s parents and confronts the father, Li Lie (Zu Feng), over whether his son is there. Li Lie says Li Miaomiao would never come home. Later, Jin Yunshi ends up with Li Miaomiao’s mother, Jing Lan (Zhou Xun), who asks him to give her three days to find her son, and if he’s guilty she’ll turn him over to the police. Not trusting her, Jin Yunshi follows Jing Lan, but he’s arrested by the police after Li Lie reports him for housebreaking. Meanwhile, Jing Lan finds her son in a cabin in the countryside and brings him home. Jin Yunshi is let free by the officer in charge, Dai Zhen (Yan Bei), to attend his daughter’s funeral in Japan; but instead he resumes the hunt for Li Miaomiao, whom he tracks down at a cosplay convention. After a rooftop chase, Li Miaomiao escapes. Jing Lan had planned to take her son out of the country, to Germany; but she now tells Jin Yunshi she has no idea where he now is. In fact he’s in the house and, after Jing Lan locks Jin Yunshi in the basement, he steals away. Jin Yunshi finally forces Jing Lan to let him out of the basement. The police arrive and Jin Yunshi and the police chase Li Miaomiao and her son separately to the airport in the middle of a tornado. After a multiple pile up on the motorway, Jin Yunshi drags Li Miaomiao out of his taxi. Jin Yunshi is eventually arrested but won’t say what he’s done with Li Miaomiao. Jing Lan persuades Dai Zhen to let Jin Yunshi attend his daughter’s funeral after all, on condition that he tells them afterwards where Li Miaomiao is. However, while in Japan, Jin Yunshi learns the truth about his daughter’s life there.
REVIEW
Never have the words “This story is purely fictional” 本故事纯属虚构 – found at the start of more and more Mainland films nowadays – been more true than in the case of Across the Furious Sea 涉过愤怒的海, a ludicrous drama-thriller centred on a father’s search for his daughter’s killer that teams comedian Huang Bo 黄渤 (in a serious role) with actress Zhou Xun 周迅. Amazingly, the name on the can is Cao Baoping 曹保平, a normally thoughtful director with a good track record (Trouble Makers 光荣的愤怒, 2006; Einstein and Einstein 狗13, 2013; The Dead End 烈日灼心, 2015; Cock and Bull 追凶者也, 2016). The maverick Cao has made manic movies in the past – rural comedies Trouble Makers and Cock and Bull – but there’s always been a point to their overheated style. Sea’s closest cousin is Cao’s The Equation of Love and Death 李米的猜想 (2008), also starring Zhou, but again the content in that justified the exaggerated style. Sea is simply a mess, played at full tilt and laughably uninvolving on any level. Equally unbelievably it managed to take a very sturdy RMB549 million on release late last year.
The script by Cao, Wu Pipi 武皮皮 and Jiao Huajing 焦华静 (who to her credit wrote Einstein and Dead End, but to her debit wrote the appalling action-thriller The Whistleblower 吹哨人, 2019) is based on a 2020 novella by Shandong-born writer/scriptwriter Lao Huang 老晃 (An Inaccurate Memoir 匹夫, 2012; Time to Love 新步步惊心, 2015) that was inspired by a real-life case of an overseas Chinese student murdered by a classmate (see left). The novella was actually written in 2015, a year prior to a similar incident, the so-called Jiang Ge Case 江歌案, in which a Chinese student was murdered in Japan by fellow Chinese whom she knew. Soon after writing the novella, Lao Huang had wanted to turn it into a film.
Sea begins as it means to continue – at full tilt. An opening sequence, in which veteran fisherman Jin Yunshi (Huang) defends his fleet from an incursion by foreign police, establishes him as an impetuous character who acts first and thinks later. When he hears from his ex-wife (comedienne Yan Ni 闫妮 in a straightfaced, bitter cameo) that their teenage daughter has vanished in Japan, he hotfoots it there, only to find she’s been murdered, maybe by her Chinese boyfriend Li Miaomiao, a weirdo who’s heavily into cosplay.
Most of the film is Jin Yunshi chasing Li Miaomiao in various locations, including the sloping roof of a convention centre, a swarm of dragonflies and, most ludicrously, the highway to an airport in the middle of a tornado. The fact that no flights would be taking off in the middle of a tornado seems of little consequence to the characters or the film-makers, who also throw in fish raining from the skies for good measure. The police are portrayed equally unbelievably, repeatedly arresting Jin Yunshi and releasing him when asked to by Li Miaomiao’s duplicitous mother.
The latter is played by Zhou, 49, all expensive clothes and red lipstick, in a way that suggests she doesn’t believe either her role or the film for one second. Just about managing to keep a straight face, Huang, also 49, simply keeps his head down and powers his way through. A creepy performance by Zhang Youhao 张宥浩, 28, as the weirdo Li Miaomiao isn’t enough to draw the viewer into the drama, which finally climaxes in yet more mea culpa by the protagonist as he slumps down exhausted. If the whole film had later been revealed as a dream, the exaggerated, illogical and unbelievable antics of the previous two-plus hours might have been excusable. But it isn’t.
Largely set on a fictional stretch of coast, the film was shot in and around Dalian, northeast China, in the summer of 2019.
CREDITS
Presented by C2M Media (Shanghai) (CN), Beijing Benchmark Pictures (CN), Beijing Yuntu Entertainment (CN), Tianjin Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), Shanghai Ling Light Films (CN), Beijing Genki Entertainment Culture (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Shanghai Magic Joy Studio Entertainment (CN). Produced by Beijing Benchmark Pictures (CN).
Script: Cao Baoping, Wu Pipi, Jiao Huajing. Novella: Lao Huang. Photography: Li Ran. Editing: Yan Yiping. Editing advice: Li Dianshi. Music: Guo Sida. Art direction: Song Xiaojie. Costume design: Ding Jiyan. Styling: Ding Jiyan. Sound: Wang Gang, Liu Xiaosha. Action: Ma Yulu, Jeon Yu-jun. Car stunts: An Bo. Special effects: Cai Kuiguang. Visual effects: Chen Yi, Han Chao (Timeaxis). Executive direction: Lin Zichen.
Cast: Huang Bo (Jin Yunshi), Zhou Xun (Jing Lan), Zu Feng (Li Lie), Zhang Youhao (Li Miaomiao), Zhou Yiran (Jin Li’na), Yan Bei (Dai Zhen, police officer), Sun Anke (Shen Xiaolin, Jin Li’na’s former roommate), Yan Ni (Gu Hong, Jin Yunshi’s ex-wife), Wang Xun (Qin, fisherman), Abe Tsuyoshi (Shimazu, Japanese police officer), Shi Shi (Wu Weiwei), Xie Ruitao, Lu Qi, Yin Yi (cosplay men), Liu Yiran (young Jin Li’na), Li Zeyu (Li Miaomiao, aged 15), Sun Yize (Li Miaomiao, aged 8).
Release: China, 25 Nov 2023.