Bai ri yan huo

OK, so yes - this is a very slow burn a times with far too many establishing and shots of decaying urban industrialisation, but when the action does actually focus on the story it's not a bad crime drama at all. We start with an arm sticking out of a pile of coal. The cops arrive and "Zhang" (Fan Liao) is soon on the case. He can only identify the corpse, though, and unimpressed his bosses ensure that five years down the line he is reduced to working as a security guard with a penchant for the bottle too. What we now know, though, is that there were a series of such killings and they are now under his fingernails. He is obsessed with identifying the killer. Reuniting with his for partner "Liang" (Xuebing Wang), they pick up a trail that leads them to the enigmatic "Wu Zhizhen" (Gwei Lun-Mei). "Zhang" now vacillates between an attraction to this woman and to suspecting her, but has she anything to do with the crimes? It's a curiously developed film, this. It proceeds in fits and starts before a denouement that is rushed and rather unfulfilling. It looks gritty and dark, the weather - cold and miserable, also helps to create an atmosphere and the acting is competent. Maybe it could lose twenty minutes of preambling characterisations, but it has a solid story with director Yi'nan Diao getting close to the the best from Fan Liao and his lumps of coal.

An ex-detective re-investigates a strange unsolved murder case that effectively ended his career five years previously. In doing so he ends up becoming increasingly involved with a young woman who seems to be connected with a series of similar killings.

It was good to see an example of a Chinese neo-noir. My previous experience with films from China has been usually of movies of epic proportions with big production values. So it made for a refreshing change to see something more low-key and contemporary. This one sets out its stall very well with the sinister discovery of various body parts being found in bags of coal spread all over the country, huge distances apart. The introduction of a femme fatale into the mix only ups the intrigue level further. And I have to say that on the whole I did enjoy this film and found it compelling, with its Chinese origins ensuring that it was a little different and punctuated with unpredictable moments. By the end of the piece it would be only fair to say that some questions still remain. I thought the ending was really very strange indeed with an odd final few moments and an ambiguous feeling. It almost feels like a superfluous ending but maybe I missed something in it. In truth odd things happen on a number of occasions throughout this one and reasons are not always very forthcoming, I am guessing this is a film that would benefit from a re-watch possibly. Also good was the wintry atmosphere of the snowy locales where the action unfolds that created a feeling all of its own which worked well. But I would probably have to conclude that, while I definitely liked this one, it does falls short of being great. It's not really that suspenseful for this type of film and the plot development doesn't ultimately reveal all that good a mystery in the final analysis. Certainly a good enough movie I have to emphasise but it just has a few hard to ignore unsatisfying flaws as well though.

This 2014 Golden Berlin Bear winner (with a rare second Silver Berlin Bear award of BEST ACTOR for Fan Liao) is Chinese director Yi'nan Diao's third feature, and his first to be shown in cinemas and harvested over one hundred million RMB, roughly equivalent to 16 million dollars, thanks to the international accolades it received. Its original title can be translated verbatim as "White Day Fireworks", it is the name of a nightclub which would be revealed as a crucial thread to a murder case, furthermore Diao arranges a literal daytime firework show to climax the film in the coda, meanwhile, its official English title: Black Coal, Thin Ice, betrays the locations which relation all the murder cases during a five-year span.

The film starts in 1999, in an unspecified city in China's North-east province Heilongjiang, Zhang (Liao) is a recently-divorced policeman, during a fresh case of a dismembered body scattered in sundry collieries where an I.D. card indicates the dead is Liang (Xuebing Wang), but due to his negligence, two fellow policemen are killed in operation while Zhang is also wounded. After that, the time jumps to 2004, now Zhang is a life-beaten drunkard and works as a security guard, two new dismembered bodies have been found, all link back to Liang's wife Wu (Gwei), whose mysterious mien attracts Zhang, he embarks on a personal investigation to follow her, strike up a conversation with her in the dry-cleaner where she works, and eventually ask her out for an ice-skating date. But at the same time, danger is lurking around him too, is Liang really dead? Or is Wu as innocent as she looks? Can all the mysteries be brought into daylight in the end or is there another lie involved? Diao smugly leaves an semi-opening end with many spurious clues (e.g. the cremains Wu buried under the tree Vs. her apparent lie of discarding it over the sea during the inquiry), to prompt viewers for disparate interpretations.

This film is to a great extent inscribed as an art-house fare with its lurid background or foreground colour embedding in almost every scene, the visual palette is meticulously chosen and also overtly, Diao is a faithful apprentice of symbolism, from a battered ladybug on the bedsheets in the opening sequence, to an abrupt introduction of a deserted horse left by junkmen, until the firework finale reaches the hallmarks of its veiled fatalism pretentiousness buried in his not-so-justifiable script, there must be a more plausible reason behind a redemption by right of admitting a murder one might not execute, it unfortunately gives an impression of a desperate trick to glaze over the banality of the story, to romanticize the damsel-in-distress reverie.

The whole story is a dancing-on-the-edge between a sex-driven anti-hero and a irresolute femme fatale, with a jarring red herring which leads to nowhere. But the two leads are giving fantastic performances, Fan Liao breathes out the irascible mentality stinkingly inflicted on a non-starter who clings to the last straw and strives to feel the ardor of living again. While Lun Mei Gwei from Taiwan, may seem to be an odd choice for a North-east girl, heedfully, she doesn't have many lines to give away her southern accent, instead, relies on her body language and facial expressions, her air of mystique is the most enticing feature entraps audience even in the film's banalest moment.

Winning over the likes of BOYHOOD (2014, 8/10) and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014, 8/10) in Berlin inevitably becomes an over-achievement for this intense crime-thriller, but put it among its Chinese peers of the same year, the film can excel most of them hands down, as one of the must-see from the over-ballooning market where ingrainedly burdened with shoddy soil damages its own commodities.

There are definitely some impressive technical flourishes here. The lighting and the colors used are gorgeous, and really do highlight a lot of the film's atmosphere, which is the other good thing about it. It's able to achieve atmosphere in a rather surprising way, but it's just too bad hat that atmosphere is wasted and doesn't really highlight much. The acting is decent, but the story and the screenplay leave a lot to be desired. The characters just aren't developed all that well, and just are so, so dull. The film's sense of pacing and development are non- existent. I don't think this is anything worthwhile, although I'm sure many will like it just fine.

It seems that, every few years, there are one or two Chinese films that, despite being slow-paced, dark, and lacking A-list stars, somehow manage to attract a large domestic audience without being controversial enough to risk complete censorship. In 2014, the only example I have seen so far is this, Black Coal, Thin Ice. The reason for its domestic success is presumably because of its awards at the Berlin Film Festival.

As the story unfolds, despite being based around a series of murders, the film has a pace more similar to an art-house film than a crime- thriller. A couple of scenes were impressively disturbing, made even more so by the slow paced, subtle atmosphere surrounding them.

The setting of a polluted, dark, seedy city in a long Heilongjiang winter seems perfect for the noir tone of the film. A subtle musical score, with some dissonant strings combined with (terrible) Chinese pop songs (intra-diegetic) creates a fantastic atmosphere. The closest thing to it I have seen is Suzhou River, which, now I come to think of it, has a lot of similar motifs (I haven't seen Diao Yinan's previous films).

The acting performances were all impressive, the female lead (played by Taiwanese Gwei/Gui Lun-Mei) seemed suitably out of place in the Far Northeast of Mainland China. Liao Fan's male lead, and Wang Xuebing's character, were both impressive.

Despite a bit of dark humour that made me giggle, Black Coal, Thin Ice is a relentlessly grim and slightly disturbing film. I was impressed that it wasn't (more) censored in China, as it paints a pretty depressing picture. Despite being enthralled by the film, I won't be booking a flight to Heilongjiang any time soon.