Lost In Beijing

The presence of industrial cranes within the frame of any movie invariably suggests that there's more under construction than the scenery. The hydraulic cranes crowding the mise-en-scène of John Mackenzie's gangster drama The Long Good Friday (1980) reflected the dog-eat-dog atmosphere of life and business in Margaret Thatcher's England and these signifiers of progress, economic upswing and ennui presage equally troublesome times for the capital city dwellers of Li Yu's Lost in Beijing (2007). The film, which concerns a La Ronde type chain of sexual inter-connection between a quartet of urbanites – the affluent owner of a foot massage parlor, his neglected, infertile wife, his beautiful but impoverished young employee and the girl's illiterate husband – struck a nerve with Chinese censors, who demanded extensive cuts be made before it could be exhibited abroad or shown domestically. While Lost in Beijing was screened uncut at the Berlin Film Festival in January of 2007 and played to success and praise in Hong Kong, its debut in Mainland China was delayed for a year. When the film was finally released with a total of 53 cuts to scenes of intense sexuality and a perceived a satirical attitude toward national monuments, the deleted bits were made available online, prompting censors to pull it mid-run and to block Li Yu and his producer/cowriter Fang Li from working in China for a period of two years. More than a few critics have found fault with Lost in Beijing's convoluted plot. While full acceptance of the scenario's particulars doesn't require a giant leap of faith, it's probably best to view the film less as verité than as a pointed satire on the level of the Robert Altman canon. When Mr. Lin (Tony Leung Ka Fai), the driven proprietor of the Golden Basin Foot Massage Parlor, mistakes the drunken languor of his emigrant employee Ping-guo (Bingbing Fan) for a sexual come-on, the ensuing encounter is witnessed by the woman's window washer husband Ah Kun (Dawei Tong). With his demand of 20,000 yuen for damages rebuffed, Ah Kun turns to Mr. Lin's sexually unfulfilled wife, Wang Mei (Elaine Jin), who lures the cuckold into her bed by way of avenging herself. As the symphony of accusations and recriminations reaches an impasse, Ping-guo discovers that she is pregnant, prompting Mr. Lin to claim the unborn child as his own while Mrs. Lin and Ah Kun take steps to ensure that they are not left empty-handed. It's not so much what happens as how it happens that gives Lost in Beijing its particular charm. Yu Li and cinematographer Yu Wang chase after the actors with a documentarian's taste for rawness and spontaneity, isolating quiet moments of reflection (quite literally, as when Ping-guo, alone with her thoughts on a stroll through downtown Beijing, catches sight of herself in a mirror being carted along the street) and sadness at the unavoidable alienation that comes with big city living. The cast is exceptional across the board but it's great seeing the brooding Tony Leung (the Chinaman of Jean-Jacque Annaud's The Lover) open up in a showstopping role that has him both running happy face pep rallies for his employees and acting as a mother hen to Bingbing Fan's expectant mother. New Yorker Video's DVD of Lost in Beijing is a bit of a disappointment. Letterboxed appropriately at 1.85:1 and anamorphically enhanced for widescreen playback, the image often looks bleary (especially during slow pans across the Beijing skyline) with some video noise present against textured backgrounds. Vibrant colors are still allowed to pop and skin tones look lifelike, resulting in a presentation that is more distracting than ruinous. The original Mandarin language soundtrack is the only audio option and English subtitles are burned into the image. New Yorker's packaging boasts the inclusion of an insert interview with Li Yu that was not included in the screener presented for the purposes of this review. For more information about Lost in Beijing, visit New Yorker Films. To order Lost in Beijing, go to TCM Shopping by Richard Harland Smith