Fresh Fruit
Who would have guessed a historical drama about shipping fruit could be so engaging?
The Lychee Road
Director: Da Peng • Writers: Da Peng, Shen Yuyue, Dai Siao, based on the novel by Ma Boyong
Starring: Da Peng, Bai Ke, Zhuang Dafei, Lau Chun-him, Andy Lau
China • 2hrs 2mins
Opens Hong Kong August 7 • IIB
Grade: B+
During the Tang Dynasty, mathematician Li Shande (Da Peng, or Dong Chengpeng, Johnny Keep Walking!, Hidden Blade) passes the civil service exams and winds up working for the imperial gardens. Years pass and Li never quite makes a name for himself in the service, settling for an anonymous life with a giant mortgage, a feisty wife, Yuting (Yang Mi, She’s Got No Name) and a young daughter. He’s convinced his fortunes take a turn for the better one day when the conniving imperial Eunuch Yu (Chang Yuan) and another official, Biao Biao (Yi Yunhe), come to him with a mission. Become the emperor’s Lychee Envoy and ensure a bunch of dried lychees get from Lingnan to the capital at Changan for the royal daughter’s birthday party by June 1. No problem. Li is thrilled with his imminent promotion until his only ally in the government, Du Shaoling (Zhang Ruoyun), clues him in and he realises Yu tricked him into being a fall guy. The lychees have to be fresh. The distance he needs to cover is roughly 2,500 kilometres and the fruit will go off in about three days. This is the Tang era; “jet fresh” is yet to be invented. Li is screwed.
Thus begins star Da’s The Lychee Road | 長安的荔枝, adapted from the novel by Ma Boyong and loosely based on a historical caper. Its veracity is unimportant, however, considering Da and his co-writers, Shen Yuyue and Dai Siao, have managed to cook up a surprisingly compelling action-drama based on the shenanigans surrounding fruit transport. Though it sags under the weight of repetition in the middle stretch (we get it, Li is testing a theory), Li might as well have been a single father for all Yuting actually does and it (or Da) really doesn’t know where its ending is, The Lychee Road is a well-mounted and entirely engaging, almost cloak-and-dagger period adventure. About fruit. That, and it sends all the right messages about good governance and corruption-busting.
Really, no SF Express?
Li’s doomed mission begins 117 days before the lychee are due in Changan. He hits the road knowing he’s been set up to fail so that none of the “important” officials are subject to the emperor’s ire or humiliated by his genius. When he gets to Lingnan he’s confronted with a disbelieving governor, He Qiguang (Lam Suet), He’s right hand Zhao Xinmin (Sunny Sun Yang, No More Bets) and crucially, merchant marine Su Liang (Bai Ke, Trapped), who offers to help for free if Li puts in a good word for him with people that count. Su also has to prove himself, to his father and older brother, neither of whom have much faith in his business acumen. The final pieces of Li’s puzzle are nearly mute slave Lin (Terrance Lau Chun-him) and lychee farmer Tong (Sabrina Zhuang Dafei), who hopes for freedom and who tends to the orchard her parents left her, respectively. With this rag tag crew helping out, maybe, just maybe, Li can get those lychee to the party on time.
Of course, when Right Chancellor Yang Guozhong (Andy Lau Tak-wah) gets involved, yet another court power player with ulterior motives, there’s a considerable uptick in just how much shit gets done – fast. The central government is efficient and well-supplied for complex logistics and everything goes smashingly until the meddlers get all up in Li’s business again and fuck him, Su and Tong up. By the time Li gets back to Changan with his few hard won lychee, the scope of the corruption, cronyism, ass-covering and buck-passing is clear, and the betrayals, death and destruction (oh there’s action, baby) were all for naught. The Imperial Court is rotten to the core. Li never stood a chance.
End The Lychee Road there and you’ve got a gloriously bleak and nihilistic finale for the ages. But Da passes up a perfect ending shot (you’ll know it when you see it) that sums up the film’s themes because heaven forbid the story end on a bitter note about the state machine crushing the honest working man. So Da spins out another 15, unnecessary minutes, in which we get to see Li in his later years, meet Su’s mysterious brother and learn of the eventual rebellion in and fall of Changan. That’s another movie (like, I don’t know, Chang An). We don’t need it here. But of course we have to understand that Yu, Yang, Biao and Co. were swept away and a better, more compassionate government took over. That said, the gratuitous ending isn’t enough to shake off the pleasures that preceded it. Richly shot by DOP Wang Boxue (The Movie Emperor) and anchored by an all-in performance by Da directing himself – this is easily his best work behind the camera – the film walks the fine narrative line between criticism and observation (s’okay, this was like a millennium ago), as well as between comedy and drama. And it’s a ripper of an actioner at times. I will admit though, I didn’t run out and buy a bunch of lychee. They’re fine, but my heart is with rambutan. Close enough.