Fan Bingbing’s new feature, Green Night, wants to be a lot of things. Helmed by female director, Han Shuai, and made with an all female crew, the movie wants to be an LGBT feminist noir. And while it does touch on these points, it doesn’t quite live up to its full potential. Then again, that will probably not stop the legions of Fan’s female fanbase from flocking to cinemas to watch their screen Goddess’ return to the silver screen.
The story is intriguing enough. Taking place over the span of two days and one night, Fan plays a Chinese immigrant working at customs when she encounters a green haired girl, whom she finds both suspicious and intriguing. As the movie progresses, the two embark on a misadventure to free themselves of the men who oppress them and gain their independence. The movie evokes a mood that is very reminiscent of early Wong Kar Wai, ala Chungking Express and Fallen Angels. Yet, there is something missing.
Thelma & Louise This Ain’t
In interviews, director Han talks alot about how she’s not looking to represent realism in this movie, and that the situations are representative of the oppression women face. Yet, I find her presentation of her characters’ circumstances to be too straight forward. It seems to lack allegory and metaphor. Han does make a noticeable attempt at dreamy symbolism towards the end of the movie, but by then it’s just too little too late.
Han also wanted to show that women are just as capable of violence as men, but she doesn’t seem to empower her two female leads to do so. They do act violently, but the violence they inflict is mostly incidental or in self defense, and rarely a conscious decision on the character’s part. Much of the strongest effort of self-determination comes from Lee Joo-young’s “Girl with Green Hair” character.
Despite this supposed to be Fan Bingbing’s triumphant return to the big screen, her character lacks agency for most of the film and seems content to be swept along in the wake of Lee’s journey, only to come into her own during the film’s final moments…
But wait a minute… doesn’t that sound a bit familiar?
The Return of the MPDG
Ah, that old chestnut. For the uninitiated, a staple of “coming of age” movies in the ’90s and early ’00s, “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl” was a quirky two-dimensional female character, whose only purpose was to spur the male protagonist towards some form of revelation. (Think Elizabethtown.) And Lee Joo-young’s “Girl with Green Hair,” is the quintessential MPDG, crashing into Fan’s character’s life (barefoot to boot!), with her quirky brash attitude, leading our meek submissive leading lady on a journey to eventually gain her own independence. (She is such a quintessential MPDG that we, and our lead, never even learn her name.)
While Han does give Lee’s character a backstory, it itself is merely a means for us to have this very movie. She is basically a plot device. Notice that I haven’t even named Fan’s character. That’s because I couldn’t remember it. I’m not even sure if we were introduced to her properly.
A Bi-Curious Love Story?
Now about this being an LGBT story… it really isn’t. Neither of the movie’s two leads ever express or explore their sexuality at all. While Lee’s character could possibly be coded as bi-curious, a part of me feels like very little thought has been put into that aspect of the story. It feels very much like a box that a movie like this needs to tick. Perhaps this could also arise from the fact that Fan had told Han Shuai that she longed to explore intimate scenes with a female co-star a la Blue Is the Warmest Colour. So what we get is a vague approximation that is not truly grounded in the queer experience at all.
An argument could be made that because it is a romance (threadbare as it is) between two women, it doesn’t need to be anything momentous, but then the question becomes why include it at all? Other than as a selling point. In interviews, Han talks about the “sisterly bond” between the two women. Is sisterhood not enough of a reason to be someone’s ride or die? Must romantic love be the only frame in which we are willing to give up everything for someone else?
A Mildly Bland Offering
As I write this review, I am trying very hard to find something compelling about this story. I have a hard time trying to feel anything for these characters and their plight. Lee Joo-young’s “Girl with Green Hair” gets the bulk of my empathy as she at least shows a fuller range of emotions. (And it’s not like I can’t empathize with being oppressed. I am, after all, a female living in this world.) What’s more, my dissonance with this movie is only increased by reading interviews with Han Shuai. I just do not see the movie she thinks she’s making.
Green Night is not a bad movie. It just doesn’t live up to its potential. Han Shuai could very easily have had another Chungking Express on her hands. But her lack of finesse and skill leaves us with a movie that is mildly bland and wannabe woke.
(Note: If you are in the market for female empowered kickass, I suggest Lee Chung-hyun’s Ballerina on Netflix instead – a film, I would argue, that he made purely as a star vehicle for girlfriend, Jeon Jong-seo)
Follow Us