BLACK COAL, THIN ICE/ BAI RI YAN HUO

China, 2014, 106 minutes, Colour.
Liao Fan, Gwei Lun Mei.
Directed by Diao Yinan.

Black Coal, Thin Ice, unexpectedly the winner of the Golden Bear at the 2014 Berlinale. The lead actor, Liao Fan, won the best actor award.

Audiences do not see many Chinese films of this kind. While there is a sense of social realism, it is basically a police and detective film, using the conventions of the genre in a Chinese context.

The film takes place in two eras. It opens in 1999 in a provincial city where a policeman is trying to reconcile with his wife but she chooses to divorce him. Then a dismembered limb is discovered in a coal truck in an assembly line. Police think that they have some suspects, go to arrest them but are shot by the suspects. One of the policeman dies, the other is wounded and withdraws from the police force, taking up a security job while he heals physically and psychologically. There are no more clues except a connection with a laundry and a woman who manages it.

There is a transition to 2004 and a similar case appears. The former policeman wants to rehabilitate himself as a person as well as a detective and takes on the case despite warnings from a colleague. Once again, the woman at the laundry is involved. The detective makes her acquaintance, draws her out, then finds himself attracted to her. She has been seen burying ashes in the sand at the base of the tree, questions are raised about her dead husband, and it all becomes quite complicated.

An important scene takes place at a skating rink, one of the skaters moving off and murdering with his skate. The detective follows, get some clues as to the identity of the murderer, the woman is arrested and interrogated.

At the end, there is a fireworks display, giving rise to the Chinese title of the film, Fireworks in Daylight, although the English title indicates both periods of the plot, the limb found in the coal as well as the skating and the allusion to thin ice.

Audiences used to detective thrillers, especially American versions, will find this film very interesting for comparisons.

1. Chinese police story? Detective work?

2. Chinese cities, the look, in the 1990s, the world of the police, coal mining, happiness? The move to 2004l, the city, the factories, the laundry? A sense of realism?

3. The lack of reference to Communism at all? The screenplay could have been used for many countries with police and gangster stories?

4. The title, black Black Coal, Thin Ice and the Chinese title, fireworks Fireworks in the Daytime?

5. The 1999 story, the wrapped limb on the coal, stopping the machines, the investigation, the police, the mystery and the identity of the victim? The association with the laundry? The two men and their arrest, the shooting, the death of the policeman, the wounding of the detective?

6. The opening, the policeman, playing cards, his wife turning on him, the divorce, his being wounded by the brothers, his having to take a job in security?

7. 2004, the new case, the detective beginning to investigate, his motivation, re-establishing himself, his friend in the police force, his friend giving him warnings – yet his being killed?

8. The identities of the victims, the burying of the ashes by the woman from the laundry, the focus on the laundry, the connection of names to the laundry? The detective becoming a customer, interacting with the woman, the outings, the attraction?

9. The woman, her husband, his death – or not? The other connections? The husband being alive? The skating, following the policeman, the brutal murder with skates?

10. The attraction between the detective and the woman of the laundry?

11. The information about the corpses, DNA, identities? The details of police work? The arrest of the woman, the interrogations, taking her to the locations? The pursuit of the killer?

12. The finale with the fireworks – that purpose, the title of the film, a further twist or not?