Zzzzzz…
Looks aren’t everything! Zhang Yimou wades into familiar waters in his latest epic mash-up.
Full River Red
Director: Zhang Yimou • Writer: Zhang Yimou, Chen Yu
Starring: Shen Teng, Jackson Yee, Zhang Yi, Lei Jiayin, Wang Jiayi, Yue Yunpeng, Pan Binlong, Yu Ailei, Guo Jingfei, Ou Hao, Wei Xiang, Zhang Chi, Huang Yan
China • 2hr 39mins
Opens Hong Kong March 2 • IIB
Grade: C+
Picture it. We open on a gorgeous widescreen shot, all blue-tinged day-for-night photography, before the overhead camera gracefully sweeps right, following an ambitious battalion deputy, Sun Jun (TF Boys refugee Jackson Yee/Yi Yangqianxi), as he races to see his boss. There’s been a murder in the compound, and before chancellor Qin Hui (Lei Jiayin, The Whistleblower) departs for a diplomatic summit, the crime must be solved. The action is punctuated by a screeching (in a hood way) borderline thrash metal cover of a Chinese folk song. Yes, guy! But after this attention-grabbing start, things go off a cliff into boringville, with a short layover in self-parodytown.
Do you ever get that not so fresh feeling? Looking at Zhang Yimou films since, roughly, the turn of the 21st century that’s the distinct feeling I get. Zhang’s been making the same movie for the last 20-odd years, and as stunningly beautiful as they may be, his epic martial derring-do and honourable heroes of unflagging moral principle are feeling hollow. And that’s disappointing, because he proved that style can go with substance – and soul – in To Live, and Raise the Red Lantern, and Ju Dou… Case in point: Full River Red | 滿江紅, which I guess you can call “innovative” because it wraps all that usual crap up in a Knives Out-style comic whodunit. He’s on the right bandwagon, but Zhang and co-writer Chen Yu (Snipers) can’t blow out the lingering mustiness at the heart of the film.
So. Much. Blue
Full River Red is based loosely on the stirring, martial poem of the same name attributed to Song Dynasty general Yue Fei. Yue is never seen in this film, but his spectre looms large. Zhang and Chen mix up the narrative (for what it’s worth) by grafting the poem onto the framework of a genre that’s having a moment – and which has very specific construction demands. In fairness, River is more reminiscent of 2009’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, the reimagining of the Coens’ Blood Simple, than of the authoritarian-friendly wuxia epic Hero, but the emphasis on style remains. And it is a beauty: sumptuous and geometric, bathed in its metallic near-monochrome. But the concepts of duty, honour and sacrifice are just getting tired.
At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, Qin is preparing to meet rival Jin delegates when the Jin envoy winds up dead. On top of that, the envoy had an important letter for the emperor, and that’s gone too. Qin’s flunkies, He Li (Zhang Yi, Zhang’s confounding Cliff Walkers) and Wu Yichun (Yue Yunpeng), team Sun with shady grunt, Zhang Da (comedian Shen Teng, box office monster Hi, Mom) to find the killer and the document, and they start their uneasy alliance questioning Zither (Wang Jiayi), a dancer and the last person to see the envoy alive. Over the course of one night Sun and Zhang, of course, unearth a conspiracy that goes way, way, way up the chain.
It’s a refrain I’ve been compelled to use too often lately but for lack of a better one… Full River Red is not bad. It’s not poorly made. It’s not ineffectual in its messaging (corruption, bad; duty, good). It’s simply been done before, better, by Zhang himself, and it’s yet another demonstration of Zhang’s seeming indifference to ongoing creativity. It’s also hard to locate the comedy part of the movie, too, as the jokes don’t really land (not in subs, which doesn’t mean they don’t work a tiny bit better in Putonghua). And it’s anyone’s guess as to why Zhang thought River demanded nearly three hours to peel back the multiple layers of its modest mystery. Ultimately it seems the endgame is a repetitive, protracted, shouting recitation of the poem, a sequence so loud it that makes you pine for the thrash folk. At least it’s not as laughable (and crushingly sad) as Chen Kaige’s Legend of the Demon Cat. That still haunts my dreams. — DEK