Tag: Si Ligeng

Three Old Boys (三叉戟, Gao Qunshu, 2024)

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In a surprising development of Chinese propaganda cinema, the once untouchable subject of police corruption has become a prominent feature albeit often in tales of righteous cops who stand up for real justice against the few bad apples who’ve allowed themselves to be corrupted by contemporary capitalism. Then again, its subject matter might explain why TV police procedural veteran Gao Qunshu’s Three Old Boys (三叉戟, sānchājǐ) has been languishing on the shelf since at least 2020 if it were not also for the inevitable effects of the pandemic. 

In any case, Gao’s film has a distinctly retro vibe with use of classic Chinese pop and very ‘70s soundtrack while its maverick cop heroes all dress in the fashions of 40 years previously. All born in the late 1960s, they are products of an even more authoritarian era and began their careers in the late 1980s. Like any other old cop movie, they bemoan the restrictions of the contemporary society and suggest modern notions of appropriate police behaviour prevent them from doing their jobs which has its degree of awkwardness on the one hand implying the modern police force is now not so hardline but also that it should be because that’s what gets the job done. 

As they contemplate retirement, the trio are offered positions as part of a new squad set up to tackle economic crimes and specifically international money laundering, the chief problem with being that the criminals had the effrontery to move the money out of China which is stealing from honest, hardworking, Chinese citizens aside from having already ripped them off with fraudulent investment schemes and good old-fashioned blackmail operations. Of course, as it turns out, the case has a connection to something that happened 20 years earlier and police officer Cui’s (Huang Zhizhong) desire for revenge on the gangster king pin, Huang Youfa (Jin Shijie), who caused the death of his younger brother murdered by gangster Donzgi who was then shot dead by fellow officer Big G (Jiang Wu). 

The convoluted narrative is heralded by a homeless man who takes the police chief hostage and mutters something about a sword of justice that sounds like something right out of a wuxia serial before being updated to the present day. The sword does actually make a reappearance and is wielded by Big G against a young whippersnapper out for revenge and to take care of what he sees as corruption in the earlier generation. When the trio are first put on the case, they are given a young rookie to help them because he’ll be able to do the tech stuff which the old guys probably can’t because their idea of policing was largely rooted in their fists and a capacity for intimidation. But this doesn’t really work with the youth of today who are for some reason fond of reminding them they aren’t their fathers so they don’t have to do what they say. This is particularly true of young thug Blondie who is caught between Ghost, the old gangster king, and Qing an upstart who is actually working for Huang but in pursuit of his own particular goals. 

Huang has his claws well and truly embedded in the modern society and has it seems manoeuvred favourable people into the police force ensuring that Cui and his team are neutered before they get the chance to do anything. Then again, Big G seems to have a very co-dependent relationship with Ghost who tells Blondie off for getting into a fight with him because cops are off limits. Nevertheless, the point is to dismantle Huang’s networks of influence to restore the integrity of the police force so they can enforce the law which exists for the protection of the people. It’s all rather confusing, but generally lightened by the intense action sequences designed by Yoo Sang-Seob which are also suitably retro but make good use of sword play along with a motorcycle chase. Perhaps ironically inspired by Hollywood hero cop dramas, the film ends with a regime change and a new photo being taken of the guys in their more modern uniforms receiving a commendation with the clear indication that something has been put to rest and the rebellion suggested by Qing’s attempt to steal power from the old quelled while the old boys seemingly decide that justice requires they put off their retirement just a little longer.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Anima (莫尔道嘎, Cao Jinling, 2020)

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“The trees are not yours. You can’t protect them” an adopted son is repeatedly told, except they are his to the extent that they belong to everyone and the consequences of not protecting them, as he will sadly discover, may prove catastrophic. Set mainly in the 1980s in the remote Inner Mongolian mountain region of Moerdaoga National Forest Park, Cao Jinling’s timely eco drama Anima (莫尔道嘎, Mòěrdàogá) asks what happens when you pull the pegs out of the earth and then take them to market, linking the ‘80s economic reforms with the advent of environmental destruction, but eventually finds a kind of serenity in the beauty of the natural world and man’s innate connection with it. 

Linzi (Wang Chuanjun), so named because he was found abandoned in the forest as a baby, recounts his tale as a letter to the son he has never met beginning with the moment of childhood trauma which forever altered his destiny and set him at odds with adoptive brother Tutu (Si Ligeng). Out playing one winter while the grownups hunted, Linzi fell into an ice cave and found himself face to face with a bear. Though he felt sure the bear would not harm him, it panicked on hearing his mother’s cries. Hoping to save his brother, Tutu shot the bear but their mother was also killed and, as bears are sacred to the indigenous Ewenki tribe, finds himself an outcast for this act of spiritual transgression. The three remaining family members move to the edge of the forest in order to evade the bear’s curse, eventually joining the local logging industry though Linzi finds himself conflicted in his love of nature while all around him are content to ride roughshod over its majesty. 

While Linzi remains a guardian of the forest living a traditional rural life, Tutu is modernity personified falling in with a gang of shady gangsters running an illegal logging and smuggling operation. While the smugglers might be thought of as the bad guys, the logging company are little better. Linzi’s boss expresses exasperation with his reluctance insisting that if they don’t cut the trees down the smugglers will while constantly banging on about his quotas. Obsessed with making money and fearful of an oppressive social order, no one is thinking very much about the long term consequences of deforestation even as Linzi tries to explain to them that it takes a long time to grow a tree and they’re in danger of running out. When the literal flood comes, it will have devastating consequences for all involved. 

Aside from their differing views on the tradition/modernity divide, the relationship between the brothers further declines when Linzi encounters a feisty widow living alone in the forest (Qi Xi), herself transgressively killing bears for reasons of revenge seeing as her late husband was eaten by one. Linzi shyly falls in love with her, but so does Tutu who finds it difficult to accept the idea that his awkward younger brother has got himself a wife. “I am cursed forever” Tutu dramatically cries after having committed a double transgression of killing another bear and presenting its pelt as a wedding present, and then attempting to rape the bride. So traumatised is he by a sense of spiritual corruption that Tutu no longer feels connected to nature, an exile from the natural world, and self-destructively embraces the worst aspects of modernity believing that he deserves no better. 

Yet even Linzi finds himself betraying his ideals in order to feed his family, falling victim to the “tree breath spell” after participating in the removal of a great old tree. People keep telling him that he doesn’t own the trees and therefore has no right to decide what is done with them, but like everyone else he’s a man of the forest continually displaced while his world is dismantled all around him. He tries to warn the loggers they’re going too far, but they don’t listen to him until it’s already too late. The authorities attempt to fix the problem with a program of “reforestation” but if the price of untempered capitalism is the destruction of the natural world it is nothing more than an act of intense self harm. Linzi attempts to hold back the tide, but is himself exiled from modern society, a sprite bound by the forest unable to leave its boundaries and condemned to watch over it for all eternity as if in penance but also in deep love for the wonders of the Earth which few are now privileged to see. 

Anima screens on Aug. 8 at Film at Lincoln Center – Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)