Savage (2018) Review

“Savage” Theatrical Poster

Director: Siwei Cui
Cast: Chang Chen, Ni Ni, Fan Liao, Jue Huang, Liu Hua, Li Guangjie, Taili Wang, Xiaojun Yue
Running Time: 112 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The harshness of winter has always lent itself to the visual medium of cinema. From the iconic 1968 spaghetti western The Great Silence, to John Carpenter’s 1982 horror The Thing, and more recently thrillers such as Cold Pursuit. In 2018 China offered up its own winter set thriller in the form of Savage, although tonally it could well be argued that it owes its influence more to The Great Silence, with its western themed soundtrack and characters.

After a trio of thieves ambush an armoured truck carrying a consignment of gold, a pair of local cop’s stumble across them when their vehicle gets stuck in the thick snow while attempting to make a quiet escape. Initially none the wiser, the cops assist them to free their vehicle, but the tense expressions of the trio combined with news of the ambush coming through on the radio soon give the game away, leading to one of the cops taking a bullet and dying at the scene. Narrowly getting away, the other cop is left to slip into that role audiences know so well – a vengeance seeking loner who does things his way and has little regard for his own life. Think Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon and you wouldn’t be too far off. The chance for vengeance comes when the trio returns to the area to retrieve the gold they had to hide in order to escape, but with a blizzard moving in time isn’t on anyone’s side. 

Savage is the directorial debut of Siwei Cui, whose claim to fame prior to sitting in the directors’ chair is being the writer of the Jackie Chan sci-fi flick Bleeding Steel. Not a credit that instils much confidence, but thankfully the past misdemeanour rarely comes to mind when viewing Cui’s latest. Assembling an impressive cast, Taiwanese actor Chen Chang plays the vengeance seeking cop, who many will have been introduced to in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Chang has always been selective with his roles, so anything he appears in draws interest thanks to scene stealing turns in the likes of The Grandmaster and Red Cliff. Leading the trio of thieves is Fan Liao, who’s featured in some of the best Chinese cinema of recent years, his performances anchoring the likes of Black Coal, Thin Ice and Ash is Purest White. He’s ably supported by Jue Huang (A Long Day’s Journey Into Night) and Yicong Zhang, here in his debut.

Complimenting the cast is the unique setting, with Savage playing out on Baekdu Mountain located on the border of China and North Korea. The mountain is considered sacred in Korea, believed to be the birthplace of the countries founder, and this aspect is alluded to when we’re first introduced to Chang, who meets his partner delivering a drunken rendition of the Korean folk song ‘Arirang’. Small scenes like this do a lot to add character to the world Savage takes place in, and as an audience the desolation of working in a small wintry town is well conveyed. In an opening scene narration Chang muses on the towns once prosperous status, one which has long since declined after logging was banned (“I never saw those good times” he states dryly). Indeed one can be forgiven for drawing similarities between the harsh landscape proceedings play out in here, and the similar landscapes that act as the backdrop in Black Coal, Thin Ice.

As a director Cui seems to be aiming to straddle the line between the more contemplative and character driven Chinese crime cinema that’s really shone in recent years, like A Touch of Sin and Ash is Purest White, and blending it with a more Hollywood influenced action thriller aesthetic. Whether he’s successful in achieving that goal will likely be down to the viewer. Some scenes feel overly familiar, such as when Cheng goes up to talk a suicidal guy from jumping, and ends up grabbing him and jumping off together à la Lethal Weapon. Other scenes we’ve still seen before, but are instilled with a sense of raw energy that makes them feel fresh, like when Cheng gets into a bar fight against a group of customers who he thinks are being too noisy, and proceeds to drunkenly beat seven bells out of them.

This approach partially works up to a point, however with a 110 minute runtime Cui doesn’t develop the characters enough to remain invested during the quieter moments, of which there are quite a few. Chang never feels like anything more than a variation of the cop seeking vengeance for his partners death, while Fan’s ruthless criminal never becomes anything more than that, instead relying on both actor’s natural charisma to carry their roles. What we’re left with is a move that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be – the characters aren’t realised enough to call it a character driven crime drama, and on the flip side the action doesn’t come frequently enough to call it an action flick. Despite this though, for the most part Savage still works if expectations are set accordingly.

This is mainly down to the fact that the setup itself lends itself well to cinema, so despite the occasional lull in the pace, the selling point of stolen gold being hidden on the mountain with a trio of thieves and a cop racing to get to it in the harshest of conditions is a compelling one. It’s also the most well realised aspect of the production, with the snowy vistas and swirling snowstorms sending a shiver down the spine even from the safety of the sofa. A mountain lodge is put to good use, home to a grizzled old mountain guide played by Hua Liu (The Island, Mr. Six) whose services are needed by both sides, and his own realisation that he could stand to gain from his knowledge of the area. The closer the blizzard gets the more characters begin to not trust each other, leading to frayed tempers and some deadly consequences for those that get caught in the crossfire.

It’s not a completely testosterone filled affair though, with Ni Ni (The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, Shock Wave 2) playing a nurse who initially is the object of both cops affections, until of course the thieves make any risk of needing to choose between them much easier. The relationship between Chang and Ni Ni is one of the more well-handled character elements in Savage, with Chang’s resentment for not being able to stop his partner from being killed preventing him from getting close, to the point where her character is now transferring to a hospital in Beijing. Ni Ni makes the decision to drive to the mountain where she new Chang was patrolling, unintentionally putting herself in the crosshairs of Fan, which sees her end up being held at the lodge where her medical skills are soon put to good use.

When the action does come it’s competently staged, a mix of shotgun blasts penetrating the snowy stillness and in one particular scene, a bear trap being utilised in a way which is sure to induce a wince. Despite being a Mainland production, for the most part Savage is free of any painful looking CGI (in fact the only sequence it’s obvious in is the heist at the beginning, but even this looks much better than the average Chinese blockbuster), with the action being kept lowkey and practical, adding to its gritty feel. For the finale everyone converges in the mountain lodge for a standoff which goes on for a little too long, which is unfortunate because initially there’s a fitting level of tension, but it gradually dissipates the longer it goes on for. From a plot perspective though, proceedings are brought to a satisfactory conclusion. 

As a director and writer Siwei Cui clearly understands cinema and is capable of crafting unique takes on whatever genre he turns his focus to (and yes, I know he wrote Bleeding Steel – unique doesn’t necessarily mean good!). Cui’s directorial debut is a good movie, the biggest issue I have with it is that it could have been a much better one, especially with more fully realised characters and a tighter runtime. If you’re a fan of survival thrillers in the snow though, and let’s face it who isn’t, then you couldn’t certainly do a lot worse than spend 110 minutes of your time on Baekdu Mountain.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6/10