Luke C on Film.

Review by Luke Carberry

Everyone loves a good mystery, which is why it’s such a pleasant surprise to find that Baoping Cao’s The Equation of Love & Death holds you in a tight a grip from the outset. Unfortunately, not even the wonderful Xun Zhao can maintain the tension for the entire length of the film and it’s only a matter of time before Cao’s latest effort drops the ball.

Xun Zhao plays Li-Mi, a cab driver who has been searching for her missing boyfriend for the past four years. One day she unknowingly picks up two small-time crooks in the back of her cab. As she runs off to fetch their change the two men become impatient and find a magazine in the back seat which Li-Mi has been using to store photos of her lost love. They take it as payment and run off to find their contact who happens to be sitting on a busy overpass. After delivering a poetic monologue the man falls and lands on a car below. The driver immediately leaves his vehicle to check on the man, when he finds Li-Mi’s stolen magazine lying next to him. To his surprise the photos inside appear to be of himself, and in turn this leads to a connected series of events unfolding.

The Equation of Love & Death opens with such cryptic and alluring dynamism, as the charismatic Zhou puffs on a cigarette and hints at what’s to come. The script instantly has you second-guessing it, and thanks to some fast cuts and kinetic editing it’s not an easy job. You’re given very little to work with as the initial characters aren’t instantly equipped with a back story, which only adds to the increasing level of wonder. It’s fortunate that the film opens with such promise as it just about guarantees you’ll be watching until the end.

This is of great importance, because as the film reaches the second act things start to change quite drastically. As the opening trail which revolves around two criminals gets ditched in order to attach a stronger tether to Zhou’s character it seems as though Cao becomes determined in making this a personal tale, rather than sticking to the path he chose at the beginning which encompassed a fair number of characters with strong narrative potential. As a result Zhou is left to carry the film almost single-handedly; a task she’s more than capable of, but it’s a some what bad move on the director’s part. Centering the story around Zhou alone makes things far more linear, as the complexity of the early storytelling is lost and Cao struggles to keep the twists exciting and unpredictable. Therefore the final revelations aren’t nearly as shocking as you might expect.

Despite this, Zhou manages to hold the audience’s attention throughout and is pretty much a life saver as far as the film is concerned. Supplying the rest of the cast with stony-faced and uncommunicative roles only helps to amplify Zhou‘s electric presence. Her determination and constant energy carry the deteriorating plot and sub-par emotional elements to new heights. In fact it seems as though this is where the problem truly lies - in having these two key values evenly severed. Cao sacrifices the story in order to support the drama and vice versa. Leaving the whole thing on a level playing field, meaning there is nothing left to push the film other than Zhou’s huge performance.

The Equation of Love & Death is at times an admirable little thriller, but Cao’s lack of focus cripples the pace and hinders the intensity you get to sample early on. Having said that, thanks to the always committed and ever surprising Xun Zhou the film offers an enjoyable ninety minutes despite its many shortcomings. Keeping in mind that this is only Cao’s second solo feature it’s definitely fair to say that there’s a lot of potential on display.

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Director: Baoping Cao

Writer: Baoping Cao

Producers: Siu Ming Tsui, Zhongjun Wang

Starring: Xun Zhao, Chao Deng, Hanyu Zhang, Baoqiang Wang, Yanhui Wang, Ning Wang

Year of Release: 2008

Country: China

September 13, 2009, 8:48pm   Comments

Review by Luke Carberry

It seems as though there are very few competent crime based thrillers being released today. Viewers are constantly holding out for the next stylised, exciting, and profound genre staple, in the vein of David Fincher’s Seven. More often than not they’re left with something lacking originality, simply piggybacking off the success of a thirteen-year-old film. In one way The Horsemen is different, in that it seems content with piggybacking off the success of an eight-year-old TV franchise instead.

Dennis Quaid plays Aidan Breslin, a detective devoted to his work, who has recently lost his wife, and is growing distant from his two sons as a result. When a series of gruesome murders take place, Quaid’s character is assigned to the case. Due to the nature of the killings, he soon discovers that the culprits have been inspired by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Jonas Åkerlund is primarily a director of music videos, but you wouldn’t be surprised having watched The Horsemen. The film posses the main attribute of something shot for VH1, in that it looks like it was intended for TV. Åkerlund’s visual style is bland to say the least, with long lingering shots and predictably drab lighting not doing nearly enough to support the scenes of supposed tension. The film’s opening credits reveal that Michael Bay was in fact one of the producers, and despite his recent Transformers adaptations being big, loud special effects spectacles with nothing more to offer, one can’t help but think that if he was helming this project there would at least be some sort of visual panache. Other cinematic elements; such as the score, don’t even deserve a mention, being made up of nothing more than a constant hum of violins, with the odd bit of piano thrown in as a weak attempt at variety.

On the plus side, the film boasts some very capable actors at its forefront. Both Dennis Quaid and Zhang Ziyi (who plays a suspected killer) are seasoned pros, who have demonstrated great range in the past. Unfortunately Quaid isn’t given much to do other than mope about and stumble upon leads. As for Zhang, this is her second fully English role, and she’s been unfairly burdened with some lengthy monologues, try as she might to deliver them.

Dave Callaham’s script about a group of Bible obsessed killers might sound exciting on paper, but the link between the Four Horsemen is barely explored, and is merely used as a thin veil to reveal some inept social commentary towards the end of the film, usually spewed out by the presenter of a daytime chat show. It’s brash, insensitive, and used to drum up unnecessary fear. However; fear not, as the ending is your usual Hollywood cop out, which renders any point the film was trying to make lifeless.

The Horsemen has been made multiple times before, with far more successful results. I‘m not actually referring to other films here, but to numerous episodes of CSI. It’s not a bad film, but when you can switch on your TV at any time of the day, and catch a forty minute episode of a crime drama which does exactly the same thing, what’s the point in wasting your time elsewhere?

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Director: Jonas Åkerlund

Writer: Dave Callaham

Producers: Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Michael Bay

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Zhang Ziyi, Clifton Collins Jr., Lou Taylor Pucci

Year of Release: 2009

Country: USA

September 10, 2009, 12:17pm   Comments