An epic romance based on the lives of Jackie Chan parents. No, not terrible as you’d think…
No stranger to historical dramas, Mabel Cheung (An Autumn’s Tales, The Soong Sisters) returns to the director’s chair after an absence of over a decade with an epic romance based on the true story of how Jackie Chan’s parents came together during the second Sino-Japanese war and the ensuing Chinese civil war. A solid cast including Lau Ching-wan (The Bullet Vanishes, Mad Detective), Tang Wei (The Golden Era, Finding Mr Right), Qin Hailu (A Simple Life, The Crossing) and Jing Boran (Monster Hunt, Rise of the Legend) make for a watchable, grand, somewhat overly melodramatic version of events. If the official stamp of approval from Jackie Chan and the politics could rub some audiences up the wrong way, perhaps the worst label the film can get is that it’s not completely terrible.
With her husband killed in a Japanese bombing, Chen (Tang Wei) falls on desperate measures to support her two young daughters, smuggling opium across borders. Stopped at a checkpoint by police officer and former spy Fang (Lau Ching-wan), he admires her spirit and lets her off. When he too is bereaved and left with his two sons, a bond begins to grow between them. But Fang soon finds himself on the run, hunted by both Communists and Nationalists. With wars and events vying to separate them and their children, the film charts their endeavours to stay together, eventually finding sanctuary in Hong Kong but without their children.
Like most of Cheung’s work, A Tale of Three Cities continues her on going collaboration with Alex Law, here acting as co-writer and producer. (Their last film together, the much-liked Echoes of the Rainbow swapped their roles, with Law acting as director.) Despite such a long absence, Cheung proves herself an adept director. Her last film in the role, the 2003 documentary Traces of a Dragon, provides the source material for much of the film. A history of Jackie Chan’s parent’s lives that even he was unaware of until not long before it was made. But even ardent fans of Chan may struggle with the narrative inventions and devices that gloss over certain aspects of their lives. As it’s told in the documentary, for instance, both Fang and Chen were cast as hard living and hard playing. Chen had a bad gambling addition, pawning many of their possessions. Something Fang only discovered later, shaming her buy buying them all back. Here those events are recast as her pawning a necklace to buy blood on the black market to nurse Fang back to health, which he ends up ‘liberating’ later in the film. All of which indicates several levels of unnecessary clunky additions to the narrative, and are by no means the worst examples.
At points it feels like their lives have been overly whitewashed. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Cheung’s earlier documentary was not that Chan’s father had done many (seemingly) immoral things to survive, but his nonchalance towards those actions. It says much about the sort of person he was, or maybe even had to become, to get by. Such amorality, I think, makes them far more interesting characters, rather than over romanticising them for modern audiences to more easily understand. If that jars somewhat, then there may more fault to find in how the different fractions are represented, with both Japanese and Nationalists portrayed as cruel and merciless, but Communists hardly seen – despite the fact that Fang is trying just as hard to escape them as anyone else – and his best friend is later shown to be aiding them. Often many historical details are noticeable by their exclusion.
But a slick romantic melodrama is what we are sold, and boy do we get it. This has perhaps far more in common with A City Of Glass than the similar historical period of The Soong Sisters. The performances from Lau and Tang are decent enough, even if enveloped in layers of hammy situations and slow motion, though never convince as an onscreen couple. It’s Qin Hailu who really stands out as Chen’s old friend, one moment glossy and sensual, and the next humble – before inevitable romance and tragedy lobotomises her character. There’s a hefty budget at play in the settings and costumes.Cinematography by Wang Yu, responsible for 24 City, The Golden Era and Suzhou River sometimes finding surprising, almost surreal, flourishes.
For most this will be another tale of hardship during one of China’s darkest periods. It’s by no means the worst of such films to be released recently, but the fact that it’s based on Chan’s parents may make it stand out for all the wrong reasons. With blockbusters like Monster Hunt and Go Away Mr Tumor filling multiplexes, A Tale Of Three Cities has already struggled to find an audience within Mainland China, and I suspect will struggle even more outside of it.
