Yin bao zhe [Explosion] (2017)

(On TV, March 2020) Movies are often just as much about their context than about themselves, and that makes assessing out-of-culture films like Explosion more difficult. So, allow me to report a bit of trivia that will help focus this film. China’s movie industry is on a rapid incline lately, repackaging Hollywood-style lessons in order to pump pro-Chinese propaganda for worldwide audiences. Fair enough; the United States has been doing so for a century by now. But like Classic Hollywood filmmakers, Chinese screenwriters and directors are working in a creative environment rife with thematic limitations. What is good as propaganda cannot be used for social criticism, and it’s in that frame that Explosion is more interesting than the thriller it claims to be. The plot itself is solid but conventional: a mining explosive expert must find who killed four miners… and who framed him for it. But here’s the thing: Explosion is best approached as a Chinese mainland film noir, and that carries expectations eerily similar to 1950s Hollywood examples of the form. The mood is grim and dramatic (although the script can’t help but crank up the action late in the movie), and the film manages, under cover of “just telling a murder mystery,” to gently poke and prod at the limits of Chinese propaganda. Taking place far from the industrialized cities that best represent the amazing progress of China over the past few decades, Explosion focuses on a nearly abandoned community and thus can tell a story where the Chinese miracle isn’t working for everyone. Some built-in tension can help focus the attention of viewers (and censors) toward the genre crime mystery and deemphasize the social criticism aspect of the film. Explosion may not be considered a particularly great or spectacular film, but it’s serious and solid (which is already more than what we can say about many Chinese exports to the west) and it’s got this really interesting context around it that adds to the straightforward thriller of its presentation.