Movie Review: The Wild Goose Lake

The Wild Goose Lake *** / *****

Directed by: Yi'nan Diao.

Written by: Yi'nan Diao.

Starring: Ge Hu (Zenong Zhou), Lun-Mei Kwei (Aiai Liu), Fan Liao (Captain Liu), Regina Wan (Shujun Yang), Dao Qi (Hua Hua), Jue Huang (Yan Ge), Yicong Zhang (Xiao Dongbei), Chloe Maayan (Ping Ping).

 

After two films, it is clear that Chinese filmmaker Yi’nan Diao is a gifted stylist – with noir being his primary interest. Like his first film, Black Coal, Thin Ice, his long awaited for follow-up The Wild Goose Lake is visually striking through – especially in the early stages, where Diao leans heavily on those noirs influences. Also like his last film, The Wild Goose Lake shows that narrative is no Diao’s strong suit – not even something he’s all that interested in, which is odd because The Wild Goose Lake’s plot is overly complicated and hard to follow, even though it’s clear that Diao’s interest is in the staging, not the storytelling. After that promising opening, the film drags a little in its second act, coming around for a fine (if drawn out) climax. It convinced me that while I will continue to watch anything Diao makes because his films look so good, I do wish he would get a screenwriter.

 

The film stars Ge Hu as Zenong Zhou. When the film opens, ex-con Zhou is working for a large crew of gangster who divide up the area to steal motorbikes – and a rival crew wants the area Zhou has been given, the whole thing leading to a fight, a shooting, a competition, a beheading, and finally Zhou killing a cop. He is identified quickly as the suspect – and a large reward placed on his head. Zhou has no intention of getting away – he knows he will be caught. All he wants is to find a way to ensure that his estranged wife (and son) get the reward money. Thus follows a way too complicated plot where Zhou hides out in the crime ridden title town, and teams up with a prostitute, Aiai Liu (Lun-Mei Kwei) to try and get the money – all while being pursued by cops and criminals alike.

 

The film looks great in those opening scenes – the scenes of the quick gang war that leads to the cop shooting are a wonderful play between dark and neon, and the scenes where Zhou and Liu first meet are classic rain soaked noir stylistics. Diao clearly knows what he’s doing. And that continues throughout the film – where Diao is far more interested in visual storytelling than anything else. The film can be graphically, and over-the-top in its violence – the previously mentioned beheading has nothing on what happens late in the film featuring an umbrella – but just as often, Diao impresses with what he doesn’t put on screen, and the way he reveals violence that just happened off-screen. I’m not quite sure the film ever quite captures the visual magic of the opening act again – but there are brilliant moments throughout.

 

None of this really helps the story too much. The story isn’t all that complicated when you look back at the film – but while watching it, it is confusing as well. The characters don’t add much either – they are one note noir archetypes from the start, and don’t get much deeper. A joyless sex scene late in the film doesn’t add anything – perhaps if you know that while its not graphic at all (at least until the spitting) it’s pretty graphic for a mainstream Chinese film – which may just mean Diao put it in to see how far he could push things.

 

The extended climax of the film works though – this is a movie where there is a lot of chasing, where the characters are always being chased, or chasing others, something both at the same time – and eventually, of course, all those chases need to come to an end. And when that arrives, it is a series of extended, brutal sequences that work very well – in part because Diao doesn’t pitch them all at the same visual style, and allows a little time to breath (the final shot of the movie doesn’t work – at least not at the length it goes on, which feels like forever).

 

Diao is obviously a talented filmmaker – and one on the rise. Black Coal, Thin Ice won the Golden Lion at Berlin in 2014, and The Wild Goose Lake made the official Cannes competition lineup this year. As a visual stylist, Diao is clearly great. But at some point, he’s going to have to learn how to tell a better story – or give us something other than the visuals to care about.

Movie Review: Black Coal, Thin Ice

Black Coal, Thin Ice
Directed by: Yi'nan Diao.
Written by: Yi'nan Diao.
Starring: Fan Liao (Zhang Zili), Lun Mei Gwei (Wu Zhizhen), Xuebing Wang (Liang Zhijun), Wang Jingchun (Rong Rong), Yu Ailei (Captain Wang), Ni Jingyang (Su Lijuan).

Not long ago, there was a series of crime movies where it seemed like the closer you looked at a crime, the less clear the whole thing became – while the movies often “solved” the crimes at their core, they could not explain them. Films like Bong joon-ho’ Memories of Murder (2003), David Fincher’s Zodiac (2006) and Nuri Bilge Ceylon’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) come to mind. Yi’nan Diao’s Black Coal, Thin Ice tries to tap into that same uncomfortable ambiguity that made those films (among others) so great – but he doesn’t quite pull it off. The movie is awash in crime movie clichés, features an overly complicated plot which is actually relatively straight forward when you untangle all the knots Diao throws into it, and at times is too self-consciously art-y for its own good. Those other films walked that fine line between regular crime film and art film masterfully – Black Coal, Thin Ice stumbles and doesn’t quite pull it off. It’s a hell of an effort though – that despite its flaws, remains at the very least interesting.

The movie opens in 1999 – when two cops, including Zhang (Fan Liao) are investigating a series of murders that involve people being chopped up, and their body parts end up across a very large area, in different coal plants. The latest victim Liang Zhijun, has been identified, and Zhang quickly identifies a suspect – but the arrest goes awry, and more than one person ends up dead. Flash forward five years, and Zhang is now a drunk – little more than a security guard – but is consulted when a similar series of murders begins again. Zhang is drawn to Liang’s widow – Wu Zhizen (Lun Mei Gwei) – both professionally and personally, as the two intertwine in classic noir fashion.

Like the best noirs of the past, Black Coal, Thin Ice takes place in a world without heroes and villains – but rather a morally grey area, in which people are flawed, and drawn into a world of violence and murder beyond their control. Even as the various murders become clear, everyone involved grows more complex, rather than less, and the world depicted is a bleak one. The visual look of the film masterfully creates that feel as well – with the neon streets of the city, and the cold, snow covered expanses around the coal factories being equally cold and foreboding. The film takes place in Northern China – and shares some visual cues, and the moral outlook, of Jia Zhang-ke’s masterful A Touch of Sin – in particular the first couple of chapters of that film. I cannot imagine that the film is overly popular with the Chinese authorities – A Touch of Sin certainly wasn’t – as it presents a similar worldview of China, in an emerging economy, becoming de-humanized.

The problems with the film exist because Diao never quite manages to bridge the gap between the noir genre film he is making on the surface, and the political art film that is going on underneath the surface. The film alternates between scenes that would not be out of place in an American police procedural, and self-consciously arty depictions of the new China, which often drags the films plot to a halt. It doesn’t help that the story itself is relatively straight forward – you know where it is headed from fairly early on in the film, and the film proceeds to go there fairly slowly. The closing scenes of the film – after the case is resolved – are perhaps the most problematic, as they don’t seem to fit with the rest of the story.

Still, there is enough in Black Coal, Thin Ice to make it worthwhile. The visual look alone is brilliant, and enough to get you through the film. The two lead performances are also quite good – even if as the alcoholic ex-cop looking for redemption, and the potential femme fatale are really stock characters, that Diao doesn’t do much with beyond the normal. Black Coal, Thin Ice has lofty ambitions – it wants to take its place among the best crime dramas of its time. It doesn’t reach those levels – but you have to admire it for trying.