The Red Awn (China) (Screen Daily, Variety Reviews)

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The Red Awn (Hongse Kangbaiyin)
Dir.Cai Shangjun. China. 2007. 108mins

Already established as a highly successful screenwriter whose work with Zhang Yang on Shower and Sunflower won international kudos, Cai Shangjun steps behind the camera for the first time with a film whose theme – a father-son relationship – has informed his previous work. A simple, soulful film that stylistically recalls Italian neo-realist films such as Bicycle Thieves, it has an authenticity that more sophisticated films often miss and shows great sympathy for flawed characters trying to survive in a world they are not accustomed to. Art house distributors and festivals dedicated to non-mainstream fare should respond.


Soonghai (Yao Anlian) returns to his home village after many years in the city. His wife had died in the meantime and his teenage son Yongtao (Lu Yulai) has officially declared him dead. Spiteful and angry that his father abandoned his family and didn’t even return for his wife’s funeral, the son would gladly see his father dead.


When Soonghai gets a job working in the wheatfields, he asks his son to join him and after a few tense days, their relationship gradually improves as Yongtao opens up to this father and learns the reasons why he left for the city. One of their employers is a woman whom whom Soonghai suspects was once a prostitute and he offers to pay her to service Yongtao who takes offense and reacts violently. The pair are reconciled when Soonghai is laid up with a bad back, but the reconciliation doesn’t last long.


While focusing on the almost monosyllabic relationship between father and son, where expressions and gestures are far more eloquent than any dialogue, Cai also explores themes such as coming-of-age and teen rebellion as well as the fierce competition between workers in a new world of private enterprise and the migration from countryside to town leaving a landscape of ghost villages.


Nothing expresses this better than the woeful tale a woman, kidnapped years before, who returns to look for her children after discovering that there is no family waiting for her in the village where she was born.


It is all delivered with a quietly affecting subtlety which follows the slow, deliberate rhythm of the countryside. The acting is note perfect, mostly underplayed and muted and occasionally erupting with emotion. Cai deserves credit for making a film that remains so faithfully close to real life without resorting to obvious cinematic cliches.


Production companies/backers
Wan Ji Communications Production (China)
Xiu Dong Hao Ye Investment and Consulting (China)


International sales
Xiudong Hao
Wan Ji

Producers
Li Xudong

Executive producer
Wang Xiuling

Screenplay
Gu Xiaobai
Cai Shangjun
Feng Rui

Cinematography
Li Chengyu
Chen Hao

Editor
Zhou Ying

Production design
Zhang Dajun

Music
Huang Zhenyu
Dong Wei

Main cast
Yao Anlian
Lu Yulai
Huang Lu
Shi Junhui
Wang Long

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[dleedlee]

The Red Awn
Hongse kangbaiyin (China)

A Xiudong Hao Ye Investment & Consulting Co., Wan Ji Communications & Prod. Co., Beijing Wushengxing Consulting Co. production. (International sales: Xiudong Hao Ye/Wan Ji, Beijing.) Produced by Li Xudong. Executive producer, Wang Xiuling. Co-producers, Lin Nianxiu, Sun Xiaoxi. Directed by Cai Shangjun. Screenplay, Gu Xiaobai, Cai, Feng Rui.

With: Yao Anlian, Lu Yulai, Huang Lu, Shi Junhui, Wang Hong.
(Mandarin dialogue)

Cai Shangjun, regular scripter for mainland helmer Zhang Yang over the past decade (“Spicy Love Soup,” “Shower,” “Sunflower”), makes a solid directorial debut with “The Red Awn,” a quietly affecting father-and-son drama set amid the scenic cornfields of central Gansu province. Impressively lensed, and with a sensitive perf by Yao Anlian as a widower trying to make a buck while dealing with his moody teen kid, pic doesn’t have enough dramatic conflict to take it far beyond the fest circuit but remains watchable nonetheless.

Yao plays Song, who returns to his village after five years away working to find he’s been officially registered as dead by his 17-year-old son, Yongtao (Lu Yulai, “Peacock”). In Song’s absence, his wife has fallen sick and died, and Yongtao mopes around, scarcely talking to his dad.

Song sets out with a friend, Yongshan (Shi Junhui), who owns a red combine harvester (pic’s Chinese title), to cut wheat in surrounding fields. Yongtao reluctantly joins them but remains surly, at one point almost running his dad down with the harvester.

Just when the movie starts to become repetitive, the story picks up some juice when Yongtao shows interest in the attractive but slightly trashy young owner of one field (Huang Lu, female lead in “Blind Mountain”). Thinking she’s a hooker from the city, Song offers her money to bed Yongtao, a misunderstanding that doesn’t help the father-son relationship one bit. But as the harvesting season wears on, and a recurrent back problem plagues Song, the two slowly grow closer.

Pic gains much from the central performance of Yao (“Shanghai Dreams”) as the widower who feels guilty about being away during his son’s adolescence, but is equally concerned, with no wife or stable income, about their future. Scenes of him with a woman who joins them on the road, and later with a friend’s widow he feels obligated toward, have a tenderness missing in his relationship with his son.

Script, co-written by Cai with film critic Gu Xiaobai and Feng Rui, takes a long time to clarify Yongtao’s character, and early scenes of the teen perpetually being surly drag the film down. Slight trimming would help in the first half, though overall the screenplay is short on real character conflict to drive the movie.

Tech package is very professional, with standout lensing by Li Chengyu and Chen Hao of the summertime Gansu landscape.

Camera (color), Li Chengyu, Chen Hao; editor, Zhou Ying; music, Huang Zhenyu, Dong Wei; art director, Zhang Dajun; costumes, Zhen Wen; sound (Dolby Digital), Xia Xin, Hu Liang. Reviewed at Pusan Film Festival (New Currents), Oct. 6, 2007. Running time: 105 MIN.

http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/4671/