Luxury Car

Peoples Republic of China

Global Film Initiative

First Run Features

R1 DVD

Reviewer: Bob Estreich

Mandarin with English subtitles

Li Qiming is an elderly schoolteacher from a small country town. His wife is dying of cancer and wants to see their estranged son before she dies, so he travels to the city of Wuhan to try to find him. His daughter YanHong is already living there. Unknown to her father she is working as a prostitute at an escort bar. Her main customer is the gangster Ge He who has kindly feelings towards her and to whom she is pregnant. Ge He drives the luxury car of the title as a symbol of his worldly success.

Li enlists the help of a near-retirement police officer who handled the case of his missing son. The officer himself has a son missing in Tibet so the two hit it off. By following what clues there are they track the son to the city of Shenzhen. The trail has gone cold there but Li decides he will return during the winter holidays and try to find his son one more time. Meanwhile his holidays are almost over and he yearns to get back to his quiet little country school.

Ge He reveals to YanHong that he knows more about her brother. When her brother first came to Wuhan he joined Ge He’s gang and was accidentally killed in a gangland ambush. Out of respect for the aging Li he doesn’t want YanHong to tell her father this as it will crush Li’s hopes of finding his son alive.

At a farewell dinner before Li returns to the country it all starts to fall apart. The policeman recognises Ge He as a gangster. Li, not as naive as he seems, has already realised that his daughter is working as a prostitute and suspects she is pregnant. A rival gang targets Ge He and the killing starts.

The story is about changing cultures as much as anything. Li was a radical young student who made anti-revolutionary comments forty years ago and was banished to the country. There he met his future wife and became content with the quiet rural lifestyle. As a schoolteacher he has respect and the satisfaction of watching “his” schoolchildren grow up in modern China. His own children have come to Wuhan in search of the newer materialistic culture of modern China. They have found it, but YanHong has also found that it was not what she expected when you are on the bottom of the social heap. It has cost her her self respect and her brother his life. Even Ge He, further up in the materialistic culture, has done time in prison already and may not be strong enough to fight off his enemies.

The performances are wonderful. Rock singer Tian Yuan, who plays YanHong, appears a little lost and vulnerable in the lifestyle she is trapped in. Wu Youcai as Li is perfect – quiet, a little world-wise even though he appears to the others as a country hick, but willing to do anything to make his wife happy one last time. Li Yiqing as the policeman is a solid, sympathetic character carrying his own loss, but he is well aware of the seedy background of life in the city. Huang He as the gangster suggests there may be some real affection between his character and YanHong, but he still has a necessarily ruthless side when his world is threatened.

Director Wang Chao has played the film as a straight narrative with no fancy flourishes or political statements. If there is a message behind the film he seems to have left it to the viewer to work it out in their own way.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No.1 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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