Animal
rain, most commonly fish, is a real-life, documented phenomenon that happens several
times a year. It is thought to be the result of tornado-like winds traveling over
water or wherever, sucking the fish up into the clouds. For castaways, fish
falling from the skies is a godsend, but the unlikely bounty is small consolation
for the sad sack Ma Jin in Huang Bo’s The
Island (trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in New York.
There
is a meteor headed towards Earth, but experts disagree about the threat it poses,
as experts do. Fate dictates it will strike while Ma Jin’s office is off on
their team-building exercises. We’d rather have the meteor-strike, which seems
to have happened judging from the tsunami-level waves that sweep them away to a
mysterious island. It is doubling disappointing for Ma Jin, because he learned
he just won the mega-lotto right before their boat left on its three-hour
cruise.
Assuming
there is still a world out there, Ma Jin has sixty days to claim his jackpot,
but there are no signs of any external life. They seem to be stuck for the
duration. Yet, he still can’t get the time of day from his office crush, Wu
Shanshan, even though he is real close to being the last man on Earth—like one
out of maybe twenty.
So,
how do they survive this rock? At first, they turn to their tour guide, Xiao
Wang, because he has military experience, but he quickly becomes a totalitarian
brute. Ma Jin and his bro then join the former “boss” establishing an allegorical
capitalist society, based on their two surviving decks of playing cards.
However, Ma Jin quickly tires of this new rat race. After sequestering himself
like a stylite, literally surviving on mana from the sky, Ma Jin plots a coup
that will institute more communitarian policies, but with him at top as the
head man.
The
presence of Huang Bo and Wang Baoqiang from the smash hit Lost in Thailand will tempt many critics to call this Lost on an Island, but despite their outgoing
performance styles, Huang’s directorial debut is mostly rather serious. The allegorical
content is defiitely heavy-handed at times, but the relationship between Ma Jin
and Wu is painfully realistic. It is not like she is this cool, sensitive woman
who automatically falls for Ma Jin once she realizes the depth of his feelings.
Instead, she shows herself to be held captive by fear and social pressure.
The
first half of The Island has an
effectively uneasy vibe, due to the uncertainty regarding the state of the rest
of the world. The set pieces are also impressive, especially the upside-down cargo
vessel wreck that becomes the home base for the boss’s capitalist society. Yet,
it is hard to silence the voice in the back of your head saying: “please,
please don’t let it end like the video for Huey Lewis’s “Stuck with You.’”
Regardless,
Huang mixes a good deal of grit in with his usual hound dog persona. It really
is some of his better work, but not quite up there with Battle of Memories and No Man’s Land. Shu Qi also elevates Wu Shanshan, making her surprisingly complicated
and ultimately quite poignant. There is legit chemistry and tension in their
scenes together. Unfortunately, most of the supporting cast give rather
one-note performances as stock characters.
Although
it has the underlying structure of your basic rom-com, The Island is ambitiously large in scale and moody in tone. The
darker hues and symbolic elements might even work better here than in its home
market, were it not for Huang and Wang, whose broader styles are a bit of an
acquired taste. Recommended for regular patrons of Chinese cinema who would
like to see Gilligan’s Island descend
into The Lord of the Flies, Huang Bo’s
The Island opens this Friday (8/10)
in New York, at the AMC Empire.
