Assembly (Variety, Screen Daily Reviews)

[dleedlee]

Assembly
(Jijiehao) (China-Hong Kong)

A Huayi Brothers (in China)/Media Asia (in H.K.) release of a Huayi Brothers, Shanghai Film Group, Zhejiang Media Group (China)/Media Asia (H.K.) presentation of a China Film Co-production Corp. production, in association with Huayi Brothers Investment, MK Pictures, Xin Ying Lian Ying Co. (International sales: Huayi, Beijing/Media Asia, H.K.) Produced by Wang Zhongjun, Ren Zhonglun, John Chong, Wang Tongyuan. Executive producers, Chen Kuo-fu, Wang Zhonglei. Co-producers, Shirley Lau, Xu Pengle, Lou Zhongfu.

With Zhang Hanyu, Yuan Wenkang, Deng Chao, Tang Yan, Liao Fan, Wang Baoqiang, Hu Jun, Ren Quan.

A PLA soldier's quest for personal honor, and that of his fallen comrades in China's Civil War, is brought worthily but not in a consistently gripping way to the bigscreen in Mainland Chinese helmer Feng Xiaogang's big-budgeter "Assembly." Mix of grit-and-spit battle sequences and peacetime drama works better in sections than as a single, long-limbed drama. Beyond Asia, where it goes out in December against the heavy guns of martial arts blockbuster "Warlords," "Assembly" will face an uphill struggle conquering any Western viewers.

Pic is already pre-sold throughout most of East and Southeast Asia, except Taiwan, where the story's subject matter may prove problematical — even though the movie is resolutely about personal heroism rather than political propaganda. Western deals, including the U.S., are still un-inked.

Much more emotionally engaging than Feng's previous big-budget excursion — production design-heavy costumer "The Banquet" — pic may alienate some auds with a first hour that's solid, in-your-face warfare before the human story really gets under way. Though this section, whose action was staged by South Korea's Park Ju-chun, is often technically gripping, few of the main cast emerge as individual characters from beneath their helmets and mud-spattered faces.

Style of shooting in this half, with jittery, handheld, color-desaturated lensing, is new for a Mainland movie but recalls both "Saving Private Ryan" and South Korean big-budgeter "Tae Guk Gi." Producer of the latter, MK Pictures, provided some specialized crew on the China shoot.
Story kicks off in northeast China in the winter of 1948 during the civil war between the Nationalist KMT and Communist PLA. In a gangbusters first reel, set in a small, ruined town under gray, snow-laden skies, Capt. Gu Zidi (Zhang Hanyu) and his Ninth Company soldiers distinguish themselves in street combat with a KMT unit. But so enraged is Gu at the loss of his political officer (who functions as a kind of secretary) that he shoots a KMT soldier in cold blood after the latter and his men have surrendered.

Gu gets a token sentence of a few days' imprisonment, during which he meets fellow prisoner Wang Jincun (Yuan Wenkang), a political officer who's awaiting a possible death sentence for cowardice. When old guerrilla buddy Liu Zeshui (well-known thesp Hu Jun) orders Gu to take the Ninth Company on a special mission, Gu asks to take Wang along with him as a replacement for the dead political officer.

Gu's mission is to secure and hold an advance post across the Wen River, to help the main PLA regiment's battle. He is only to retreat when he hears the assembly bugle call.

After valiant fighting by the ill-equipped, tiny Ninth Company against huge KMT troops — often stunningly staged in grungy, muddy colors — a couple of soldiers claim they've heard the assembly call and argue for retreat. Gu says he's heard no such thing, and the Ninth fights to the last man — Gu.

Exactly an hour into the pic, story moves forward two months to when Gu is recovering in a PLA hospital. He can't prove his identity in the Civil War chaos but signs up for combat in another company. Three years later, in North Korea, he's fighting the Americans and South Koreans during another civil war, when he saves the life of Er Dou (newcomer Deng Chao) who has stepped on mine.

Rest of pic is largely set in 1955, in peacetime China by the Wen River, where a retirement home is being built for army veterans. Now obsessed with recovering his own honor and his comrades' missing bodies, Gu sets out on a mad, personal mission against official bureaucracy, helped by Er Dou, now a senior officer, and Wang's young widow, Sun Guiqin (Tang Yan). What he discovers provides a mild twist on earlier events.
Though the personal story starts coming into focus in the latter half of the movie, the various time segments work rather clunkily, dissipating what should be a gradual emotional buildup to Gu's final redemption. (Pic is based on the true story of Gu, who died in 1987, aged 71.) Still, individual scenes are often quite touching, and Zhang's powerhouse playing as the aging Gu provides some continuity.

In the latter stages, Deng provides quiet support as the indebted Er Dou, and Tang adds some much-needed softness to a pic that's almost wholly male-driven drama.

Feng, whose pre-"Banquet" comedies like "Big Shot's Funeral" established him as China's most commercially successful director, shows much of his earlier skill at building engaging characters. It's more the structure of "Assembly" that works against his efforts than any weaknesses in directing the cast.


Directed by Feng Xiaogang. Screenplay, Liu Heng, adapted from the book "Guansi" (Litigation) by Yang Jingyuan. Camera (Technicolor, widescreen), Lu Yue; editor, Liu Miaomiao; music, Wang Liguang; art directors, Zhang Chunhe, Zhao Jing, Zheng Xiaofeng; costume designer, Zhao Hai; sound (Dolby Digital), Wang Danrong; sound designer, Jin Shiyuan; visual effects supervisor, Phil Jones; special effects supervisor, Eric Nordby; action director, Park Ju-chun; additional camera, Zhang Li; assistant director, Zheng Chunyu. Reviewed at Pusan Film Festival (opener), Oct. 4, 2007. Running time: 124 MIN. (Mandarin dialogue)

http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/4521/53/

[dleedlee]

The Assembly (Ji Jie Hao)
Dir. Feng Xiaogang. China, 2007. 125 min.


Feng Xiaogang's fiercely patriotic war picture, is set to become a blockbuster at home, offering China its own Private Ryan. But while the film standards may be technically impeccable, it could do with more story and characters to carry its audience through a considerable journey. Based on a real event first recounted in a story by Yang Jinyuan entitled The Law Suit, Liu Heng's script badly stumbles, struggling to convey ideas in a couple of hours.

Starting with an extended, pyrotechnically virtuoso battle sequence, this is the tale of the feisty, impulsive and uncompromising company commander who devotes his life to obtain full recognition of his men's acts of bravery.

It displays the spirit and attitude of post-Second World War movies produced by Soviet cinema, but is told with the technical sophistication of the post-Spielberg era. Feng's great professional skills far exceed the interest he has in his human protagonists which are mostly cardboard characters devoid of much personality.

Chinese audiences may sympathise with the story enough to confirm the film's constant claim to mass appeal, but once it steps out of its own territory, it will be an uphill battle all the way.


Cpt Gu Zidi (Zhang Hanyu) of the Chinese Liberation Army has been reprimanded for what would be considered in today's terms a heinous crime (he orders his men to shoot POWs because his political officer had been killed in action) but is reinstated at the head of his company before the battle of Huai Hai, one of the bloodiest in China's War of Liberation in the winter of 1948.

He is ordered to take hold of a position and keep it at any cost, never to budge an inch unless he hears the bugle calling Assembly (therefore the title), which would indicate he has permission to withdraw.

Decimated, as they try to stop tanks and heavy artillery mostly by improvised means, some of his men claim they have heard the bugle and should retreat.

Gu refuses to believe them and goes on fighting until all his men are killed, one after the other, except him.

Badly wounded, he is taken prisoner by the enemy, then recaptured by the his own side, but by the time this happens, his unit does not exist any more and he can't even establish his own identity let alone prove what his unit did on the battlefield.

They had all (including himself) been classified as Missing in Action and as such denied the honors they deserved as heroes of their country.

Once released from hospital, he goes back to serve as a simple foot soldier and once again is severely injured while saving the life of his commander in an act of rare bravery.

His sight is by now perilously impaired and he can no longer be an active soldier but he refuses to rest and obstinately persists on pestering the authorities, battling bureaucracy and indifference, sending reports and demanding full recognition for his fellow soldiers, for whose death he feels partly responsible. Had he given the order to draw back at the time, some of them, at least, might have been saved.

Needless to say, his stubborn insistence finally pays of and eight years later, all the company is posthumously decorated, and a monument is put up in their memory.

Spectacularly shot by Lu Yue (a director in his own right), the colour is almost entirely drained out of the film's early sequences, leaving it black and white, grim, gritty and dark, with occasional flashes of red and yellow flames.

As the film progresses, color gradually seeps back in, reaching a full palette before the end.

Expertly cut to particularly in the action scenes, its reputedly $10m budget is all very visible and effectively put on the screen with smashing special effects action scenes provided by a top-notch Korean team under Park Ju-chun.

The moves, acts and shorthand communications under fire suggest many hours of watching American genre films before launching on this one. The stalwart characters resemble very much Russian war epics and Zhang Hanyu faithfully delivers a bigger than life performance in the lead role.

Though there is a vague insinuation of criticism at the army not paying enough attention to its heroes, no sensitive toes are stepped on in the process.

Production companies
Huayi Brothers
MK Pictures

International sales
Media Asia/ Huayi Brothers

Executive producers
Chen Kuo-fu
Wang Zhonglei

Producers
Wang Zhongjun
Ren Zhonglun
John Chong
Wang Tongyuan

Screenplay
Liu Heng adapted from "Guansi" (The Law Suit) by Yang Jingyuan

Cinematography
Lu Yue

Editor
Liu Miaomiao

Production design
Zhang Chunhe
Zhao Jing
Zheng Xiaofeng

Action director
Park Ju-chun

Sound design
Jin Shiyuan

Music
Wang Liguang

Main cast
Zhang Hanyu
Deng Chao
Liao Fan
Wang Baoqiang
Yuan Wenkang
Tang Yan
Hu Jun
Ren Quan

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