Dir.: Bai Xue; Cast: Huang Yao, Ka Man Tong, Elena Kong, Sun Yang, Ni Hongjie; China 2018, 99 min.
In his flawed feature debut Bai Xue does a great job of exploring activities on the border between mainland China and Hong Kong. But the convincing cast is hampered by a clichéd script with almost no dramatic heft – the usual verve of a first film seems to be confined to production values.
The story revolves around a young Chinese student Peipei (Yao) who has just turned sixteen. Everyday she crosses the border to Hong Kong from her home in Shenzhen. Feeling diminished by the more affluent students in the former British colony, particularly her best friend Jo (Tong), and keen to travel with her on a much-dreamed of trip to Japan, PeiPei joins a smuggling ring headed by a female version of Fagan in the shape of Mrs. Hua (Kong). But things don’t go according to plan. Jo’s boyfriend Hao falls in love with her, and then Peipei falls foul of the border police.
DoP Piao Songri offers a surprising contrast between small town China and the glitter and lights of Hong Kong and Peipei is caught between the two. Her workaholic father and hard-drinking and gambling mother (Hongjie) are busily involved in their own lives. Every time Peipei crosses the border, Xue freezes the frame: the demarcation zone is set. Peipei is a danfei, that is the child of a Hong Kong citizen and a Chinese national, but she juggles her identities without really overcoming the naivety and spontaneity of adolescence. Clearly she is no match for the scheming Mrs. Hua, who preys on her young thieving victims, soon making them reliant on her for a decent income. But Xue dwells too long on the teenagers’ aimlessness, which is repetitive and unimaginative, along with the love triangle, which is never really explored and too conventional to go with the free-flowing camera movements, and the accelerated tempo of the action. AS
ON RELEASE FROM 22 March 2019