Once you have reached rock bottom, there are very few options available to get back up again. While we tell ourselves stories and myths of people who have achieved this next to impossible task, these tales will remain fiction because in reality there is sadly no place for fantasy. Chinese cinema has a long history of infusing these ideas with the grim reality which you can see in many communities throughout the country. Gao Peng‘s blend of drama and thriller “A Long Shot” follows this tradition, telling a story of two men, both of them experiencing the economic reality of 1980s China, with one of them on the brink of losing all hope for a better future for himself and those around him.
A Long Shot is screening at Asian Pop Up Cinema
Once a famous sharpshooter with international aspirations, Gu Xuebing (Zu Feng) has become part of the security crew guarding the Fenglin Ferroalloy Factory in northeastern China. After he was forced to quit his career because he partly lost his hearing, he is one of the many henchmen protecting the factory from thieves and other dangers. Like the factory workers, their pay has also been docked or even downright refused by their superiors, making Gu and his colleagues susceptible to bribery, turning a blind eye when someone “misplaces” some of the few valuable machinery and scrap metal that is still left. Those who cannot pay the guards are beaten and sometimes transferred to the police.
One day, Gu catches Geng Xiaojun (Zhou Zhengjie) trying to steal from the factory. However, since he is the son of Jin (Qin Hailu), one of the only friends the former sharpshooter has left in town, he lets him go. As he tries his best to make the young man change his ways, he is confronted with his own moral dilemma and the crimes happening around him. Gu realizes the shadiest criminals are perhaps not the thieves, but the ones higher up, profiting from the exploitation of people and the region.
Essentially “A Long Shot” can be divided into two parts. While the first introduces the dramatic aspects of the story, the second contains the thriller elements, where the two main characters have to prevent an even bigger theft than the ones we have previously seen. Peng, who is one of four co-writers of the script, takes his time presenting all aspects of the main characters, their relationship and the world they live in. The almost post-industrial look of the feature emphasizes the slow death of this particular region, how it has been exploited over years and their inhabitants betrayed with slogans and propaganda to carry on and keep a brave face. Even though the pacing is an issue here and there, one aspect which is quite well-done is how Peng presents the dynamics within the team of security guards, with each one of them trying to get by financially. In contrast, the youths of the area have become disillusioned with aforementioned slogans, attempting to find easy ways to get what they want, with theft almost feeling like a kind of rebellion to a system which they feel has let them down.
Considering this dramatic foundation to the story, the actor’s performances emphasize how years of hardship have changed their characters. Zu Feng plays Gu as a man who seems still wounded by what could have been in his past, and how his concepts of fairness and equality have become nonsensical in a world defined by corruption and betrayal. Zhou Zhengjie as a young man still clinging on to a dream for a better future ahead, seems like a reflection of what the former sharpshooter once believed in, making Gu protect this glimpse of youthful innocence at all costs. The core idea of the moment between taking aim and firing a shot is quite fitting, as Gu experiences one moment of clarity, in which he realizes who he is and what he has become. The thriller element is heavily based on the notion whether the action he takes comes too late or whether he has fallen so far from the tree he is doomed.
“A Long Shot” is a blend of drama and thriller. Director Gao Peng creates a tense story about a man trying to win back some kind of dignity and self-respect, which is very well-acted and -shot, even though the feature could have used a little trimming here and there.
