Black Coal, Thin Ice

Black Coal, Thin Ice
Directed by Diao Yinan
Screenplay by Diao Yinan
Starring Liao Fan
Gwei Lun-Mei
Wang Xuebing
Release dates
  • 12 February 2014 (2014-02-12) (Berlin IFF)
  • 21 March 2014 (2014-03-21) (China)
Running time
 106 mins
Country China
Language Mandarin
Box office US$16,460,000[1]

Black Coal, Thin Ice (Chinese: 白日焰火; pinyin: Bai Ri Yan Huo; literally: "Daylight Fireworks") is a 2014 Chinese thriller film written and directed by Diao Yinan. The film won the Golden Bear award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.[2]

Plot

The story is set in northern China in 1999 and 2004.[3][4] A detective works to solve a series of murders where the victims' dismembered parts are scattered across the province via coal shipments. The common thread is a female clerk in a dry cleaners.

In several scenes, vehicle license plates feature the characters 黑A, which indicate that the film is set in the city of Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province. The city is reputed to be the coldest in China, plus the character 黑 (hei) means "black" in Mandarin -- one of the color motifs throughout the film.

The movie opens in 1999, where dismembered remains of a human appear in various coal deliveries throughout the province. Several cops, including main character Zhang (Liao Fan), show up to investigate the finding. We learn that body parts have been found in multiple locations on the same day. The dead man is identified as coal factory worker, Liang Zhijun (Wang Xuebing) by an identification badge that is found among the collection of body parts. The cops quickly identify a suspect and head off to interview him. During the interview and ensuing arrest of the suspects a shoot out occurs and all of the police officers, except Zhang and his partner, and the suspects are mortally wounded. The case is considered closed and the ashes of Liang Zhijun are given to his widow Wu Zhizhen (Gwei Lun Mei), who works at Rong Rong Laundry. She buries the ashes at the base of a tree just outside Rong Rong.

Fast forward to 2004 and we find that Zhang is now a drunken security guard that was traumatized by the events of 1999 that left a few of his colleagues dead. During a chance encounter with his former partner outside of Rong Rong, Zhang learns that two additional murders with the same modus operandi have occurred. The common thread in these murders is that each man has dated Wu. This new information sparks Zhang and he begins to clean up and investigate the murders on his own. To begin his investigation, Zhang becomes a customer of the Rong Rong laundry, and begins following Wu at night. He does not do a good job surreptitiously following her and she quickly catches on to him.

Zhang brings his clothes to be cleaned at Rong Rong. He picks up his pants and takes them outside and damages them. Once he damages the pants, he returns to the laundry and complains to the laundry's owner and namesake, Rong Rong (Wang Jingchun). Rong Rong tells Zhang that Wu has damaged customer's clothing in the past and that the only reason he employs her is because he feels sorry for her (due to the death of her husband and boyfriends). He relates one story in particular where Wu damaged a man's very expensive jacket. The man came to the laundry demanding compensation a few times and then he just stopped coming suddenly. Rong Rong says that he recently found the jacket and is thinking of contacting the former customer to return it to him.

Zhang continues his independent investigation and following Wu, all while the police also investigate the murders. Through discussion with his former partner, Zhang learns that the most recent victims were both wearing ice skates when the pieces of their bodies were recovered. When Zhang follows Wu that evening she leads him to an outdoor ice skating rink and offers to teach him to skate. During the outing, Wu skates away suddenly and Zhang follows her down a street. Concerned for Zhang safety, his former partner also follows as he has been watching them all night.

Later, as Wu returns to her apartment, Zhang's former partner is following a truck that has followed her. The former partner identifies a suspect and follows him into an alley. He handcuffs the suspect and while handcuffed the suspect attacks and kills the officer with the blades of his ice skates. The murder of his former partner makes Zhang even more determined. On a hunch he returns to the ice skating rink and pages Liang Zhijun (the 1st murder victim from 1999), a man looks around as if he were about to respond and then leaves the rink.

Zhang starts to follow Liang Zhijun around, as now he knows that he faked his own death. While following Liang, Zhang watches him drop more body parts into passing trucks that are delivering coal. Zhang suspects that the body parts that Liang dropped were those of his former partner. He confronts Wu regarding his suspicions that Liang is in fact alive. Wu tells confirms that Liang is alive and that he's been following her since 1999 and killing any man with which she's involved. She says that Liang faked his own death because he accidentally killed a man during a robbery.

Zhang gets Wu to help the police catch Liang. She reveals his location and arranges to meet with him one last time. They meet and decide sometime later to go out to buy cigarettes. When they leave the room, the cops give chase and eventually kill Liang.

The cops ask Wu for some of Liang's ashes so that they can confirm that he is the man that was killed. She says that she threw the ashes in the ocean, which makes Zhang suspicious because he saw her bury the ashes at the tree 5 years earlier. On a hunch, he returns to Rong Rong and offers the owner a large sum of money to purchase the damaged jacket that the customer abandoned. He goes around looking for the owner of the jacket and eventually makes it to the Daylight Fireworks Club. He meets the female owner of the club and asks if she recognizes the jacket. She says that her husband owned a similar jacket. She also says that he ran off with another woman and she hasn't seen him since, although she would recognize the woman if she saw her again.

Zhang suspects that Wu is the woman and goes back to Rong Rong to invite her out to a performance. She agrees and they meet the next evening and he takes her to what looks like a carnival. They ride the ferris wheel and she notices that there is no show. When she asks Zhang about it, he tells here to look over there and points. She looks and sees the Daylight Fireworks Club and she knows that she's been caught.

Later, Wu reveals to him that she in fact killed the owner of the jacket. She killed him because he wanted repayment for the damaged jacket. When she couldn't afford to pay he forced her into an ongoing sexual relationship with him to resolve the debt. When she didn't want to engage the sexual encounters any further, she murdered him and Liang disposed of the body while faking his own death to protect her. It was in fact her victim's ashes that she buried at the base of the tree outside of Rong Rong.

She is arrested and as she's being escorted to jail, fireworks are set off despite the fact that it's daylight.

Cast

Production

The project started from Diao Yinan's idea to film a detective story.[5][6] Diao spent eight years in total to write the screenplay;[7] the final version that was filmed was the third draft. The film was then laid out into a detective film noir.[8]

Liao Fan gained 44 pounds of weight to play the film's protagonist of an alcoholic and suspended police officer.[9]

Name

The film's English title Black Coal, Thin Ice is different from its Chinese title Bai Ri Yan Huo, which translates literally as Daylight Fireworks. Diao Yinan came across this phrase from a friend of his.[10] Diao further clarified the meaning of "daylight fireworks" as a state of sentiment or a state of condition. For him, the Chinese and English names together helped to construct the difference between reality and fantasy. In an interview he explained, "Coal and ice both belong to the realm of reality, but fireworks in daylight is something fantastic; they are the two sides of the same coin." The English name refers to the two visual clues in the film: coal as "where the body parts were found" and ice as "where the murder was committed".[11] He further explained, "when the two are combined, the reality of this murder is constructed ... while daytime fireworks is a fantasy, it is what we use to coat ourselves from the cruel side of this real world."

Reception

The film was shown in competition at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival,[12] and went on to win the Golden Bear prize for Diao.[2][13] The film's leading actor Liao Fan also won the Silver Bear for Best Actor.[14] The film received critical praises at the Berlin Film Festival, but audience reaction was more divided.[4][9]

References

External links

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