Zhang Yimou is one of the most important Chinese filmmakers of the moment. After the fantastic ‘A Second’ and ‘Shadow’ (we will make an effort to forget ‘The Great Wall’) it premieres Cliff Walkers, a spy thriller that has taken a year to reach the Spanish billboard.
espionage within espionage
In China in the 1930s, a group of spies trained in the USSR return to their country to investigate some terrible experiments perpetrated by the Japanese army. Completing the mission will not be easy, since they will soon find themselves involved in a counter-espionage plot in which nothing and no one will be what it seems.
The premiere of ‘Cliff Walkers’ and ‘One Second’, Yimou’s last two films, was seen affected by the pandemic. Although both films went through festivals last year, their arrival on the billboard has not been an easy path and, in the case of this film, it has taken more than a year for it to be shown in Spanish cinemas.
Throughout his filmography, Zhang Yimou has shown that he has two facets in which he moves like a fish in water: the most spectacular Wuxia (‘House of Flying Daggers’, ‘Hero’) and the intimate historical stories (‘Love under the hawthorn tree’, ‘I return home’). Two apparently antagonistic aspects that, however, Yimou handles masterfully.
In this film, the director goes to the espionage genre with a story not as round as his best works. The plot sin of being confusing at timessometimes making it difficult for the viewer to locate himself in the intricate network of characters (we have spies from one side who pretend to be spies from the other and not a few change sides more than once).
When you get used to the constant crossings, as a thriller manages to keep the interest and it is quite entertaining, although the filmmaker’s followers may miss a greater emotional depth in the characters.
What really stands out in the film is one of the main features of Yimou’s cinema: the visual section. The director once again counts on Xiaoding Zhao, cinematographer of many of his most spectacular films, to portray the snowy landscape in images of overwhelming beauty.
In the cast we have Zhang Yi (‘Beyond the mountains’), qin hailu (‘A Simple Life’), Yu Hewei (‘I am not Madame Bovary’) and zhu yawen (‘The Battle of Changjin Lake’).
‘Cliff Walkers’ is an interesting, although at times somewhat confusing, historical spy thriller where the impressive visual section shines with its own light. Despite not being one of Yimou’s best works, it’s worth enjoying on the big screen while we wait for ‘Under the light’ and ‘Sharpshooter’ to arrive.