‘China noir’ at Cannes: the edgy, dark genre seeking recognition at film festival

Tales from the shadowy edges of modern Chinese society aim to turn heads at the Cannes Film Festival, showing the growing scope and sophistication of the world’s second-largest film market. The Diao Yinan-directed crime thriller The Wild Goose Lake is going head-to-head with the likes of Quentin Tarantino’s highly anticipated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or. Similar gritty themes are expected to be explored in director Zu Feng’s Summer of Changsha, which is competing in the more edgy Un Certain Regard section. Both films are part of a growing “China noir” film movement that is expanding the boundaries of a Chinese film industry strictly controlled by government censorship over topics such as violence, corruption and sex. Shot and situated far from the gleaming lights of modern China’s metropolises, these films feature haunted anti-heroes dwelling on the edges of society. The box office success of 2017’s critically lauded Looming Storm – about one man’s hunt for a serial killer stalking a small town – showed that previously taboo subjects are increasingly tolerated by China’s National Film Administration. Cannes Film Festival: Chinese film industry evolution embodied by ‘sixth generation’ directors Diao’s last crime thriller Black Coal, Thin Ice picked up the Golden Bear top prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2014 with its gripping tale of a wronged policemen looking for redemption. It was also a global box office ground-breaker for low-budget Chinese films, collecting around US$17 million after successful domestic and limited international runs. “These are exciting times,” says Alexandre Mallet-Guy, producer of The Wild Goose Lake. “Our film is noir, with a very complex plot and it is very stylish.” Diao is currently locked away in an editing suite in Beijing working on a final cut of his new production, made with the support of companies in both China and France. “It’s even more stylish than Black Coal, Thin Ice,” says its Paris-based producer Mallet-Guy. “He is very influenced by noir. Most of the films from China that go international are genre films, actioners and those with big budgets. But hopefully, we are seeing a new generation and a new style of film.” Over the past two decades the Chinese film market has gone from being very humble beginnings to one that produces around 600 films a year with box office receipts now topping US$8.5 billion – second only to the North American market’s US$11.4 billion. At Cannes, two Chinese films show Hong Kong’s golden era of showbiz Chinese audiences have previously flocked to a string of locally produced blockbusters such as the bombastic military themed Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), which became China’s biggest grossing locally made film with takings of an estimated US$870 million. But tastes appear to be changing. Last year saw the surprise phenomenal success of the Wen Muye-directed Dying to Survive, which focused on the illicit trade in cancer drugs, and made an estimated US$450 million for its investors. At the same time, China’s art house scene has been hotting up. International festival heavyweight Marco Muller was among the first to introduce Chinese cinema to the world through his work with the Venice and Rotterdam festivals. Since 2017 the Italian has hooked up with leading Chinese director Jia Zhangke to put together the annual Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival. Jia’s last film Ash is Purest White , which featured his long-time partner Zhao Tao, was in competition at Cannes last year, and also played with themes of crime and corruption. “Those are the films that sell well internationally,” says Muller. “They are edgy, dark and exciting. They still have to be approved by the various departments of government, but it seems that more and more filmmakers are looking into noir.” Like American “film noir”, which emerged in the 1920s and enjoyed its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s when films’ moral fibre was strictly controlled by the notorious Production Code, its Chinese variant centres on stories around crime set mostly in the shadowy fringes of society. China recently introduced regulations that require filmmakers to be handed a “dragon seal” of approval before films are permitted to screen at festivals. But the production team behind The Wild Goose Lake say they have been given the all clear. Less is known about Zu’s production, although the film has reportedly been officially passed to screen. However, Chinese officials are capable of last-minute interventions – and fame is no protection. Zhang Yimou, the maker of Raise the Red Lantern, and one of the country best known directors, had to pull his latest film, One Second, from the Berlin film festival, in February, on government orders on the eve of the event. Another Chinese film, Better Days, that had been scheduled for a screening, did not get shown because it failed to get the go-ahead in time from Beijing’s censors.