Cliff Walkers (2021) Review

“Cliff Walkers” Theatrical Poster

Director: Zhang Yimou
Cast: Zhang Yi, Qin Hailu, Ni Dahong, Zhu Yawen, Yu Hewei, Lei Jiayin, Liu Hao Cun, Yu Ailei 
Running Time: 125 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

As one of China’s most highly regarded fifth generation filmmakers it seemed like Zhang Yimou was impervious to the increasingly strict censorship laws that the government has imposed on its cinematic offerings in recent years. However in 2019 we learnt that not even a filmmaker of Yimou’s stature was above the states all-seeing gaze, when his latest feature One Second was pulled just days away from its premier at the Berlin Film Festival citing “technical reasons”, by now a common euphemism for censorship trouble. One Second was eventually released over a year later after reshoots to address the offending content, leaving a relatively short period until the release of his next feature with 2021’s Cliff Walkers, which much like 2018’s Shadow also sees Yimou working from his own script.

I bring up the background involving One Second, as Cliff Walkers very much feels like a movie from a filmmaker who’s been burnt by the need to censor his own work, and doesn’t wish to go through the same process again. So instead we get a movie that literally ends with the onscreen text “This film is dedicated to all of the heroes of the Revolution”, ensuring it favours good will when it goes in front of the board and makes it into theatres unscathed. Yimou isn’t alone in facing the need to compromise to fit into China’s new, heavily jingoistic cinematic landscape. Fellow fifth generation alumni Chen Kaige has the upcoming Battle at Lake Changjin on the horizon, a big budget battle epic that he co-directed with Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, which covers the courageous heroics of the People’s Volunteer Army in a decisive battle during the Korean War. If you’re thinking wasn’t China on what would become North Korea’s side, you’d be right.

If Yimou knows anything though, it’s how to put together a truly gorgeous looking piece of cinema, and in Cliff Walkers it feels like he’s channelling his visual palette more than ever, perhaps to over-compensate for the familiar plot. Set in 1931 shortly after Japan invaded China, opening text states that “The Japanese set up secret camps in Northeastern China, where heinous crimes were committed against the Chinese.” It’s difficult not to point out the hypocrisy in such a statement considering the current controversy around China’s own Xinjiang internment camps for Uyghurs, however it’s safe to say that irony is not high on the agenda for the Chinese Communist Party. Taking place in the Japanese controlled puppet state of Manchukuo, the plot is split into chapters and revolves around four communist agents sent to protect a survivor of the camps, so that he can live to provide proof of their existence.

Led by Zhang Yi (The Eight Hundred, The Climbers), he’s joined by his wife played by Qin Hai-Lu (A Simple Life, After This Our Exile), and another couple played by Zhu Ya-Wen (Chinese Doctors, The Captain) and Liu Hao-Cun (Sharpshooter, A Little Red Flower). Parachuting into a snowy forest, proceedings open with a first-person perspective, as we join each one of them landing in the snow-covered landscape in what almost feels like a serenely dream like sequence. In a precursor to the many double and triple crosses which are to come, Yi tells the others that they’ll be swapping partners to avoid detection. So Yi and Hao-Cun set off in one direction, and Ya-Wen and Hai-Lu in another.

Little do they know they’ve already been betrayed by one of their own who was captured and about to receive a bullet in the head, but decided to spill the beans in order to live another day. The betrayal means that local official and Japanese collaborator Ni Da-Hong (The Trough, Wolf Warrior) has dispatched teams of his own disguised as communist allies, complete with secret codes and passwords to earn their trust. When each pair meets with their so-called counterparts on the ground, Yi and Hao-Cun call their bluff and escape after a tussle (involving a surprisingly gory twig being lodged in an eyeball), however with no way to contact Ya-Wen and Hai-Lu, they’re left to fall into the enemies hands. Played by Yu He-Wei (Mr. Six, The Island) and Yu Ai-Lei (Black Coal, Thin Ice, Saving Mr. Wu), will they put an end to the agents mission before it starts, or is one of them also a double agent and part of the communists cause?

With an espionage heavy plot and more flowing trench coats and fedora hats than you can shake a stick at, Cliff Walkers very much feels like China’s take on Korea’s Age of Shadows, Kim Ji-woon’s 2016 spy thriller that unfolded in 1920’s Seoul and Shanghai. As with any comparison between Chinese and Korean cinema, the emotions in Cliff Walkers are much more understated, however the aesthetic and plot make them an easy double bill to recommend. Yimou’s latest also comes with its own Korean connection, bringing in leading action director Jung Doo-hong (Fist and Furious, City of Violence) to choreograph the action. While it would be a stretch to call Cliff Walkers an action movie, the sporadic bursts act as exclamation marks which underpin the primary thriller elements, with scenes such as a three way fight that breaks out in a cramped train compartment offering up a quality that’s on par with the cinematography that frames it.

Where Cliff Walkers fails to engage is in its characterisation, with most characters coming across as one dimensional and lacking depth. Interestingly Johnnie To’s Mainland targeted thriller Drug War from 2013 suffered from the same issue, which saw the cops that populated his story sucked of all personality and character, portrayed as being little more than ridiculously efficient at the job they do. Yimou seems to be suffering from the same affliction here after his recent run-in, and an attempt to add some pathos to the story by introducing a sub-plot that involves finding the kids that Yi and Hai-Lu had to abandon feels clumsy and out of place. 

Out of everyone, its Yu He-Wei who gains the audiences empathy the most, playing one of the Japanese collaborators disguised as a communist ally that Ya-Wen and Hai-Lu team up with, the fact that he’s actually on their side unbeknownst to them creates some of Cliff Walkers tensest moments. While his character isn’t necessarily developed any more so than any of the others, through the default of having so much at stake by nature of his role he becomes the most relatable and engaging player out of the cast. The rest of the cast do well with what they have to work with, Hai-Lu being a standout as she’s left to execute some of the most critical moments of the mission, which includes being involved in a thrilling car chase that manages to find that rare balance between practical effects and CGI.

Indeed when it sticks to its central theme of espionage, and the fact that it’s all unfolding in a snow-covered world being lensed by Zhang Yimou, Cliff Walkers makes for an engaging experience. While there’s no doubting the story of communist agents on a mission to uncover Japanese atrocities is toeing the party line to a tee, Yimou wisely keeps the jingoism lodged in the background, almost as if it’s muted by the snowfall that populates the screen. The Japanese camps are barely mentioned let alone seen, and even a dinner scene which sees the comrades share their communist ideologies with Russia manages to feel natural under Yimou’s assured direction, slipping in the required nods to the CCP, but never hitting the audience over the head with them. Cliff Walkers may be Yimou playing it safe, but he seems keen to not get roped into any gratuitous China flag waving, an increasingly common sight in the country’s blockbusters.

The focus here is clearly on the cloak and dagger shenanigans that unfold between the characters onscreen, and the stunningly lensed settings that they do it in, and to that end Yimou’s greatest achievement is making Cliff Walkers feel much more epic and grandiose than it actually is. That may sound like a criticism, but in a country where film can be considered a threat to national security, it’s probably better described as a back handed compliment. 

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10