With his third film, Yang Shupeng (a.k.a. Leon Yang) continues in his personal quest to reinvent the Western genre Chinese-style, with this classy film, set in north-west China during the period of the Japanese occupation.
The story revolves around a group of audacious, determined and extremely skilled bandits, led by the young and charismatic Fang Youwang. The bandits have built themselves an underground labyrinth which helps them move about in an unpredictable manner, whilst also making them impossible to trace; they are well-known in the area for their spectacular robberies carried out wearing character-based masks.
Gao Dongliang, the only member of an anti-Japanese resistance group who survived a failed attempt to assassinate the brother of the Japanese emperor, by chance witnesses one of the bandits’ impressive feats; he then attempts to infiltrate the group in order to earn their trust and convince them to help him in his patriotic mission. Fang and his men are intrigued by Gao’s proposal, but have an alternative plan: instead of killing the prince, why not kidnap him and ask for a ransom in gold from the emperor? The film’s narrative is complex and involves a great number of characters, each more extravagant than the other, but the core of the story is that a group of bandits find themselves in a position of having to choose between survival and the chance to do something for the greater good: helping to save their fatherland and, in the process, being unwittingly transformed from bandits to heroes.
Many Chinese films have dealt with a similar theme, relying on drama to help the tale unfold. But this film manages to celebrate the heroism of these anti-heroes (the Chinese title of the film can be literally translated as “common people”) whilst maintaining, to the very last frame, a decided vein of black comedy. The dynamics between the various characters and the gradual metamorphosis of the bandits into heroes – starting with Fang Youwan, the charismatic leader of the group played by Huang Xiaoming – never assumes sentimental tones; the ferocity of the bandits remains until the very end. In explaining the title of the film, the director said: “Despite the fact that they live on the margins of society, the characters in the film are brave and ready to take responsibility for their actions. The ancients used to say that when a ‘common person’ gets into a rage, there is no knowing how far blood can fly.” The setting, the costumes, the spectacular photography of the film (especially the scene of a battle in the underground hideout of the bandits, shot in a single sequence of three minutes which required the building of an entire system of caves within the studio) seem almost to underline the fact that life, even that of the “common people”, can be exceptional when lived with passion.
Maria Barbieri