Crazy Stone (Screen Daily Review)

[dleedlee]

Crazy Stone (Feng Kuang De Shi Tou)

Shelly Kraicer in Shanghai 14 July 2006 05:00

Dir: Ning Hao. China. 2006. 100mins.

The commercial potential for modestly budgeted, audience-oriented films in China’s film industry may be more theoretical than fully realised - but Ning Hao’s Crazy Stone is a model example of how it can work, combining as it does box-office appeal with strong production values and a jazzy contemporary sensibility.

New Chinese cinema is multi-faceted, and well-made genre movies like this offer an alternative to the costume melodramas, martial arts blockbusters, and dramas of subterranean social angst that dominantly define the country on the festival circuit. Distributors and programmers, both in Asia and further afield, should take note of this caper comedy, which boasts s madcap sensibility, furious pacing and snazzy style to spare.

Ning’s first two films, the quietly droll Incense (2003) and Mongolian Ping Pong (2005), hinted at the director’s penchant for drawing humour from closely observed details of quirky character and situation. But it took this collaboration with Focus Films, Hong Kong megastar Andy Lau’s production company, to awaken his latent commercial sensibilities.

Crazy Stone is produced by Focus First Cuts, a series showcasing six feature films on HD DV by young new Asian directors (Lau himself sings the film’s theme song). The feature is playing well after opening in late June in China, taking RMB 3m from 103 prints during its nationwide opening weekend: impressive numbers for a low-budget film without big stars.

A pleasantly convoluted plot centres around the theft of a valuable piece of jade. Discovered by factory owner Xie Tianli, who is in deep debt to rapacious developer Feng (Xu Zheng), the jewel offers Xie a way to pay off Feng and thereby secure the jobs of his 200 employees. So he arranges to display the jewel, presumably increasing its value, in a dusty little Chongqing temple festooned with tacky dancers.

Hired to protect the jade is Bao (Guo Tao), a factory security director with a serious prostate problem and a fierce dedication to his new mission. Feng turns to international HK-based super thief “Mike” to steal the jewel, but three bumbling local thieves (Dao Ge, Xiao Jun, and Hei Pi) swipe Mike’s briefcase full of plans and decide to beat him to the jade.

This three-cornered heist comedy is further complicated by Xie’s good-for-nothing artist-photographer cum lothario son Xie Xiaomeng (Peng Bo), who also needs the jade to help seduce Jing Jing (Hou Shu) - who just happens to be Dao Ge’s girlfriend.

A richly interlocking set of coincidences (guard Bao and the local thieves stay in adjacent rooms of a hotel, but never figure out they are working against each other), double-crosses and misunderstandings (the jewel gets switched with a fake three times, provoking multiple misunderstandings) propels the story to its satisfying conclusion.

Director Ning reaches into Hong Kong cinema’s kit of cinematography tricks, and ups the intensity: scenes are spliced together with hilarious matching shots complete with tongue-in-cheek sound effects. Canted cameras, stuttering jump cuts, fish eye lenses, multiple speeds within a shot, and modest but effective visual effects spice the story with visual flair and enhance the narrative’s nimble rhythms.

Two bravado sequences see all four storylines cross and play out as time-puzzlers, approached from each character’s viewpoint in a impressively designed non-chronological sequence.

Performances are uniformly excellent: Guo Tao plays Bao with a dramatic intensity and comic range that ably hold the film’s centre. Liu Hao is all elegant command and subtle menace as Dao Ge, and Huang Bo is hilarious as his sweet-voiced hapless comrade-in-thievery.

Musical score is a nifty combination of guitar-rock and traditional instruments (playing selections from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker): sound effects dazzle. The Sichuanese river port of Chongqing, which features in a large number of Chinese films this season, provides a refreshingly vibrant setting for this modest yet satisfying comedy.

Production companies
Concord Creation International
Warner China Film
Focus Films
Huahuo Wenhua Fazhan

International sales
Focus Films

Chinese distribution
Warner China Film HG

Executive producers
Yang Buting
Cao Zhong
Andy Lau

Producers
Lan Ruilong
Bao Shihong
Zhou Lin
Han Sanping
Yu Weiguo

Screenplay
Zhang Cheng
Yue Xiaojun
Ning Hao

Cinematography
Du Jie

Production design
Zhang Xiaobing
Li Yading

Music
Funky Moji
Yuan Yi

Main cast
Guo Tao
Liu Hua
Lian Jin
Huang Bo
Yue Xiaojun
Hou Shu
Chen Zhonghua
Peng Bo
Wang Xun
Xu Zheng
Wang Jianing

http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?st ... 963&r=true

[dandan]

'crazy stone' - mainland dvd
http://www.buyoyo.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?style=1&prrfnbr=8832316&prmenbr=152&CGRY_NUM=251&LANGUAGE=1&Supplier=&curr=USD

it's a shame that there's no english subs though...

[dleedlee]

I'm pretty sure there will be a HK release shortly. Andy Lau's other Focus Films seems to be getting distributed.

[dandan]

has it had a cinematic release in hong kong yet?

[dleedlee]

Good point, I don't think so.

Trailer and MV and other info available here:
http://www.focusfilms.cc/film/crazystone.htm
http://www.focusfirstcuts.com/

There is also a site forum for their related films.

[dleedlee]

Now that it's opened in Hong Kong...bump.