Fireworks in broad daylight
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Fireworks in broad daylight |
| Original title | Báirì yàn huǒ |
| Country of production | China |
| original language | Standard Chinese |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Diao Yinan |
| script | Diao Yinan |
| production |
Vivian Qu , Wan Juan |
| music | Wen Zi |
| camera | Dong Jingsong |
| cut | Yang Hongyu |
| occupation | |
| |
Fireworks in broad daylight (Original title: Chinese 白日 焰火 , Pinyin Báirì yàn huǒ, "Fireworks in daylight" , English title Black Coal, Thin Ice ) is a Chinese thriller from 2014. It is the third feature film by director Diao Yinan . The film won the Golden Bear at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and opened in German cinemas on July 24, 2014.
action
In the summer of 1999, body parts were discovered in several coal plants in a small town in northern China. Two policemen died while trying to arrest a suspect, and another named Zhang Zili was injured. After his suspension, he takes a job as a security officer. His life is out of joint, he starts to drink.
A few years later, body parts of several victims were found again in the dead of winter. After Zhang meets a former colleague, he begins to investigate the mysterious process on his own. He finds out that a young woman named Wu Zhizhen was in a relationship with several of the victims. Zhang poses as a simple customer at her job, a cleaning, and begins to watch her. He makes advances to her and he makes an appointment to skate with her because the police found skates on each of the victims.
When his colleague tracks down the alleged murderer, he is killed with an ice skate while trying to arrest him. Zhang continues to meet with Wu Zhizhen, who is the focus of the investigation into the murder cases. It turns out that the alleged killer is her ex-husband, who was allegedly killed in the first murder case. At the request of the police, she sets a trap for him. When he tries to escape, he is killed by the police.
Due to inconsistencies in Wu Zhizhen's statements to the police, Zhang has doubts about her allegation that her husband was solely responsible for all the murders. It turns out that the first murder victim was a client of the cleaning company Wu works at. Since Wu Zhizhen's valuable coat was damaged during the cleaning process, the customer, who owned the “Broad Day Fireworks” nightclub, demanded a high amount of compensation, which Wu could not afford. He then sexually abused her several times, which is why she killed him with the help of her husband. To cover up the murder, evidence was deposited to impersonate the husband as a victim. Since then he has lived in secret as a “submarine”, only visited by his wife at night. He killed the men with whom Wu began affairs and threw the body parts into passing freight trains. Wu is arrested and shows the police the scene of the first murder. Someone is setting off fireworks in the neighboring house and shooting fireworks at the police, while Wu is being driven away in the police car.
Awards
The film was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2014 Berlinale . The main actor Liao Fan received a Silver Bear from the jury for his performance .
reception
At the Berlinale, the film received overwhelmingly praise from film critics, while audience reactions were rather mixed. The Guardian praised the "mysterious way" with which "Diao stages some of his most important scenes". The film is “visually as interesting as nobody would have guessed” and “imaginatively confusing”. The film-dienst saw an “artfully staged and photographed thriller” which, with “an admirable sense of style”, succeeded in “ congenially transferring the characteristics of American noirs to current Chinese conditions”. It unfolds "the social panorama of an atmosphere of omnipresent fear, in which there is still room for poetic outbursts".
Web links
- Fireworks in broad daylight in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Fireworks in broad daylight in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Marius Nobach: Fireworks in broad daylight. film-dienst 20/2014, accessed on September 24, 2014 .
- ↑ China's 'Black Coal, Thin Ice' takes top prize at the Berlin Film Festival . France 24 . February 16, 2014. Archived from the original on October 15, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 10, 2014: "Black Coal, Thin Ice" divided audiences in Berlin but won critical praise. "
- ↑ Asian glory as Berlin film fest wraps up . The Bangkok Post . February 16, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014: "Black Coal, Thin Ice" divided audiences in Berlin but won over many critics. "
- ^ Luke Buckmaster: Black Coal, Thin Ice review - a chilly, neo-noir thriller. The Guardian , June 12, 2014, accessed on September 24, 2014 : "The film is littered with suggestions that it's withholding information, from the jarring way the plot moves - gradually and slowly, then quick and jolting - to the stubbornly secretive manner with which Diao stages some of his most important sequences. The final reel is visually interesting in ways nobody could anticipate; it is also smugly perplexing, as if the filmmaker took joy from the knowledge virtually nobody would understand it. "
