Last Updated on January 23, 2021 by rob
Set in a heavily industrialised region of the country – all hellish, steam filled factories and squalid, freezing hovels – the film follows Wu (Dan) as she takes the night train to a dating service in a nearby city. After several unsatisfactory liaisons Wu finds herself drawn to Li Jun (Qi Dao), a young man who seems interested in her but who turns out to be the widow of one of Wu’s executed prisoners. An uneasy relationship develops between them but Li remains torn between genuine affection for Wu and what she suspects is his desire for vengeance. When, on the eve of a boat ride home with Li, Wu discovers a knife and an axe in his bag, she must make a fateful decision about her own future. A superb performance from actress Liu Dan as the lonely prison guard in charge of female executions is the heart of this bleak, compelling arthouse film. Critical of China’s system of capital punishment the film was unsurprisingly shot as an indie production and therefore denied release in its home country. Whilst it’s not hard to see Wu as a symbol of China’s murderous regime the strength of the film resides in Liu Dan’s sympathetic performance as the prison guard.
Initially set up as a cold authority figure (the film pointedly has her yawning in court during the death sentence handed down to Li’s wife) Wu’s desire for companionship in a world where love is a commodity to be bought (a date that she thinks is going great turns out to be a gigolo employed by the dating agency) has a quiet desperation to it that evokes our sympathy to the point that when Li enters the picture seeking revenge we’re just as torn in our feelings toward Wu as he is. Director Dia Yi’nan has said that his film was inspired by a dream of being pulled toward death and that fateful mood infuses Night Train. I particularly liked Wu’s own growing awareness of her predicament, which in common with the rest of the film is conveyed in a resolutely low key style. A shot of a minor character drifting on a boat, his throat cut, clearly foreshadows Wu’s presumed fate and yet, as if aware of our feelings for Wu, the final scene leaves it up to us to decide whether or not Wu should take that fateful boat ride.
