Very stylish film noir from China and a relatively new director Yi´nan Diao who wrote and directed this.
Basically it’s the story of two or three days in a manhunt for an ex-prisoner called Zedong who mistakenly killed a policeman soon after his release when he was in the middle of a gang battle with other gangs of motorbike thieves.
Set around Wuhan, it is beautifully filmed by Jinsong Dong, has some wonderful set pieces starting with the second scene which is a workshop on how to steal motorbikes and continuing with a variety of chase scenes, even one in a zoo.
Diao plays with light and shadow a lot and with a slight sense of the absurd: one of the characters seems to live in a cupboard while another scene involves sex in a laundry on top of a washing machine in mid-cycle.
Perhaps the story and the depth of characterization is not so great but the way he frames the scenes, the way he uses the camera to observe and the stylistic and aesthetic effects are very good.
Ge Hu as Zedong and Gwen Lui-Mei as the ‘bathing beauty’ who offers to look after him act well enough and there is a satisfying array of minor characters. All of which, together with the scenery portray a modern view of the underside of China, that of crime and relative poverty.
The streets are dirty, the buildings mouldy with damp and with old advertising peeling off them, people seem to live in dark squalid noisy rooms and even the local beach is hardly the Riviera.
The portrayal of the bumbling police force is classic and perhaps explains why the film hasn’t been released I believe in China. Diao makes a lot of social commentary covertly and it works.
As a film it nods in the direction of many great directors like Wong Kar-Wai and may have little to add to the genre but it is made with flair and creativity and seems to represent present-day China well.
4 stars
passionfilm 