Across the Furious Sea

Chinese director Cao Baoping's relentless crime thriller is simply more proof that there's ample life in Mainland China's genre cinema.

A propulsive, intense flick that barrels forward with numerous inquiries and high-speed pursuits, never letting up for at least two thirds of its duration. Anchored by Huang Bo's committed turn as a desperate father searching for his missing daughter, the film is quite successful in creating a chaotic atmosphere that swallows it whole, for better or worse (but mostly the former). In that light, it often reminded me of The World of Kanako.

So, the positives first; the performances are uniformly good, the pacing just about as relentless as it gets, the chase scenes as expertly filmed as anything in modern Chinese thrillers. And the story is quite an emotional rollercoaster too; despite the film's structural deficiencies, it still manages to hit the required story beats. The most impressive sequence here marries both cathartic emotions and visceral action, coinciding a freeway chase with an incoming storm, complete with a huge tornado and fish that rain from the sky.

However, parts of this film fail to completely satisfy, for example its barely coherent storytelling that is partly masked by enthusiastic filmmaking, but reveals its weaknesses upon later reflection. Some events happen almost randomly, characters disappear without further explanation and/or circumstances regarding their fates remain unclear. I've encountered these problems in other Chinese thrillers too, so it's not like I was too surprised by their appearance. Transitions between some scenes are abrupt and editing sometimes feels off; altogether more proof this film needed some more time in post-production.

That being said, Across the Furious Sea is one of China's more successful genre efforts in the last few years; both commercially and creatively. Cao Baoping isn't new to crime thrillers, so this will serve just fine to further boost his profile. Genre enthusiasts would do well to check this one out, provided they keep their expectations realistic.

Love, divorce, mental problems, desire to be loved, Japanese animation, these have always been unavoidable problems for most traditional Chinese families. We can even arbitrarily say that when a problem child appears, he or she will be involved in the above problems to a greater or lesser extent.

And these antinomies are exactly the propositions that the entire movie wants to discuss.

The first half of the movie has a very tense pace. Thanks to Huang Bo's unparalleled acting skills, drum-intensive soundtrack, and fast-paced narrative, the audience will always be in a state of adrenaline.

As the story reaches its climax in the middle, we can see two people with completely different identities, genders, and wealth start an offensive and defensive battle for their children, and become increasingly crazier. Until finally, when all pursuits are over, Bring the subject back to the problem itself.

The second half of the movie is so calm that it's hard to get used to it. Although it avoids a hasty ending with a boilerplate Happy Ending, the ending still lacks an in-depth discussion of the theme of the movie. This not only makes people doubt that director Cao Baoping wants to give Is the audience watching a reflection on family education, or is it just a chase scene?

The overall narrative of the movie is very compact, making it difficult to follow the pace. In order to enhance the atmosphere and make the plot more dramatic, the director will even design some unreasonable plots. You can feel the director trying to tell the story as he sees it.

Although it leaves much to be desired, the film is still worth watching. Such a story can be successfully told and attract everyone's attention, which is already a very big progress.