Ying Lang’s new film, exploring the world of China’s new ‘entrepreneurial ‘developers’, is an eye-opener in every sense.

Luo Liang (Luo Liang) acts as driver and gopher for Boss Peng (Peng Deming), who bribes local officials and makes speeches about bringing prosperity to the outkirts of Ziyong City, Sichuan Province. The theme is a familiar one: how small landowners are persuaded to sell up so developers can make quick profits. We follow the passively amoral Luo Liang as he carries out his duties, driving the boss to secret meetings, delivering bribes and trying to recover debts from defaulting suppliers. As pressures mount he witnesses the suicide of a friend and mentor, victim to market uncertainties. With his marriage on the rocks, Luo becomes attached to a teenage prostitute, and when Boss Peng succumbs to mental stress it’s only a matter of time before disaster befalls Luo Liang too.

Unusual sets and bizarre images reflect the dark humour associated with this director. They include the seizing of a giant hollow Buddha head from a factory and loaded onto a truck. It re- appears in a room from which bailiffs have removed all the furniture, the incident which precipitates the suicide. In another scene, to the sound of increasing clamour, a crowd suddenly erupts from a meeting hall, chasing Peng. A rural village chief resists a money bribe but appreciates fine wine. However, the most incongruous images and sounds are produced when a Chinese Goth pop band emerges at intervals to intone gloomy lyrics, like a Greek chorus. They materialise first in a hospital corridor after a confrontation and finally on a river boat carrying a bier as wounded Luo lies on a hillside. Lyrics about falling leaves and departing a vale of tears add a melodramatic coda to the narrative.


Ying’s impressive debut , Taking Father Home (Bei yazi de nanhai, (2006), and The Other Half (Ling yi ban, (2006), showed his mastery of film using a largely nonprofessional cast. Luo’s stressful life is depicted in the narrow spaces of his flat in a rundown block, his wife’s angry voice offscreen, or as he lounges in the foreground of a shiny office venue where Peng and his associates plan their shifty schemes around a table in the middle distance. A cramped car interior moving through an angry mob, or rural lanes and grazing cattle contrast with cityscapes of cranes and high-rise blocks, all showing the human and material cost of change . Dogs and cats wander across the screen and punctuate the soundtrack, metaphoric reminders of the vast numbers of small-scale operators like Peng. The film’s title echoes Deng Xiaopeng’s famous remark, that a good cat is one which catches mice, regardless of its colour. Peng explains to Luo that the end justifies the means, however shady, in a film that by turns engages and surprises the audience with the its audacity.

Good Cats was screened in the 2008 London Film Festival