Trouble Makers
6 /10 1 Votes
Director Cao Baoping Music director Liu Qing Duration Country China | 6/10 IMDb Genre Action Screenplay Cao Baoping Language Mandarin | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Writer Cao Baoping , Que Diwei Release date Shanghai:
June 21, 2006
New York:
June 30, 2007 Cast Gang Wu, Feng Zili, Wang Shujun, Zhang Xianghua Similar movies Cao Baoping directed Trouble Makers and The Equation of Love and Death | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trouble Makers (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; literally: "Glorious Indignation") is a 2006 Chinese black comedy film written and directed by Cao Baoping. It was Caos solo directorial debut, though Cao had previously co-directed the film Absolute Emotion in 2001. Based on Que Diweis novella, "Village Operation," which was published in a magazine in 2000, Trouble Makers had difficulty traversing the Chinese censors and often found itself lacking funds until 2005. As a result, Cao eventually inserted a happy ending that differed from ending in the original novella.
Contents
A backwater hole of a village, appropriately called Blackwell, is under the thumb of the four Xiong Brothers, who are salt traffickers, rapists, corrupt officials holding a monopoly on power in the village and relentless profiteers. Promoted to be the local Party Secretary so he can be the brothers' fall guy, Ye Guangrong smiles to their face, but is seething inside. Unable to fight this new "Gang of Four" through official channels, he assembles a colorful posse of riff-raff, thugs, coarse peasants and honest villagers who are simply fed up. And then they start to fight dirty. For his first feature, screenwriter-turned-director Cao Baoping demonstrates an absolute mastery of the medium, with a rigorous mise en scène that produces a claustrophobic feeling, uncanny for a depiction of the countryside.
Plot
Trouble Makers tells the story of four simple men living in Black Well Village (in rural Yunnan province) who decide to finally run the criminal Xiong Brothers out of their homes. The Xiongs have managed to build a criminal "empire" in the small town even managing to elect themselves the mayor and official accountant of Black Well Village. Two other brothers enforce the Xiongs will with violence and intimidation. The brothers, known by the political-infused moniker, the Gang of Four, smuggle salt and generally terrorize the villagers of Black Well.
When Ye Guangrong, the nerdy and nervous local party secretary has had enough, he rounds up several other oppressed villagers including Tugua, an account, and Dawang, whose wife was raped by one of the brothers, to clean up the village.
Guangrong and his vigilantes quickly find themselves over their heads. Hiring less than savory characters like "Dog Balls," a kung-fu obsessed buffoon, Guangrong and his men give themselves officious sounding military titles. As events spiral out of control, a confrontation between the dangerous Xiong Brothers and Guangrongs vigilantes seems inevitable.
Cast
Similar Movies
Cao Baoping directed Trouble Makers and The Equation of Love and Death. Cao Baoping directed Trouble Makers and Einstein and Einstein. Grandpas Love. Shaolin Popey. An End to Killing (2012).
Release
Trouble Makers was premiered first in the small village in Yunnan where it was filmed. From there, it was screened at numerous interntanional film festivals and received its United States Premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival on June 30, 2007. The year before, the film also premiered at several other boutique festivals, including the International Thessaloniki Film Festival, which focuses on first and second features. At the 2006 Shanghai International Film Festival, Trouble Makers won the jury prize at the Asia New Talent side-competition.
References
Trouble Makers WikipediaTrouble Makers IMDb Trouble Makers themoviedb.org