THE MISSING GUN
China, 2002, 90 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Lu Chuan.
The Missing Gun is one of several films produced in China but co-financed by Sony from the United States. Several films of Zhang Yimou, Not One Less, The Road Home, Happy Times were some classics from this arrangement. Other films included the thrillers and comedies Big Shot's Funeral and Double Vision.
This film focuses on a police inspector, a murder, a great deal of circumstantial evidence and the complications arising from misinterpretations of actions, a missing gun. This makes the film an interesting drama in its portrayal of its characters as well as a complex psychodrama in its unravelling of the police case and a murder mystery. It is a successful venture for the co-production - but is designed especially for a Chinese audience. However, because of its skills and its portrait, it travels for worldwide audiences.
1. The title of the story, its relationship to Ma Shan, his role as a policeman, his role as a man in China - with the responsibility for a rare gun and the possibility of going to prison?
2. The Chinese provincial setting, the town and homes, the clubs, the surrounding countryside? Musical score?
3. Ma Shan and his discovery of the gun missing, his relationship with his wife, son? Domestic life? His decision to go to his cousins, asking them about the guest list, discovering that everybody, including himself, was drunk? Nobody remembering anything?
4. The guest list, going to see Zhou Xiaogang, the richest man in the town, his illicit liquor business, the brother of the soldier who died with Ma Shan in the war in Vietnam?
5. Ma Shan on the street, the bricklayer who was selling noodles? His going to the house, discovering Li and the remembrance of his love for her many years before? His meeting Zhou, the big car? His clothes, the wealth? The clash, the fight?
6. Li and her death, Ma Shan having to investigate, the bullet from his gun, his arrest for murder, under custody, the interrogations? The angle of the shot, the impossibility of Zhou's story to justify himself that she shielded him from being shot?
7. Zhou and his arrest, the discovery of the illicit still? Ma Shan and his interrogation of Zhou, changing his mind?
8. The build-up to the trapping of the criminal, the previous sequences with the police chief, his demands on Ma Shan? His arrival, the confrontation, his motivations for the killing, Zhou as a criminal destroying society in the town?
9. The film as a psychological drama, a man searching for his identity, a murder mystery, a critique of the police, of society, of gangsters and wealth?
