The Climbers 攀登者

Rousing mountaineering adventure marred by strong Chinese patriotism.

Directed by Daniel Lee

Starring: Wu Jing, Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Yi, Hu Ge, Jing Boran

China, Mandarin

2019

Approx. 125 mins.

The Climbers is a juggernaut film and a guaranteed box office success with Daniel Lee Yan Kong at the helm and Tsui Hark offering producing duties and a cast of heavy hitters such as Wu Jing, Zhang Yi and Zhang Ziyi. Thankfully the film is rousing and somewhat entertaining if it bit pandering towards Chinese sentimentality.

In 1960 a team of mountaineers successfully scaled Mount Everest but failed to document their success due to heroic act from mountaineer Fang Wuzhou (Wu Jing) who saves fellow team member Qu Songlin (Zhang Yi) opposed to the camera needed to photograph the historic moment. Song harbours a great anger towards Fang and they both go their separate paths, Fang greatly dispassioned and distances himself from his love interest student meteorologist Xu Ying (Zhang Ziyi). Their expedition, despite a success, has made the world question the legitimacy for there is no hard proof and in 1975 China is offered a new chance of redemption for the countries pride. A new crack team of adventures are brought into the fold with Songlin and Fang charged with training the new recruits to tackle Everest, but the task at hand is proving to more difficult than initial plans.

Amidst all this are side plots involving; a Tibetan girl Mudan (Choenyi Tsering) falling in love with photographer, Li Guoliang (Jing Boran), a team member Yang Guang (Hu Ge) who

Has a family inherited ailment and a crack team of meteorologist lead by Xu Ying played by Zhang Ziyi. All this contributes to an overly bloated film with plot points and characters feeling like tools to exaggerate the over importance of the cause. With the copious amount of meandering in the story in detracts from the main focus of the film. At every turn melodrama punctuates and this in turn hampers the proceedings, drama is so overwrought and manufactured in feels fake but thankfully the cast are fully invested in their performance. At almost every turn of some achievement there is always an action sequence and it can become a bit too much of a good thing. There is always a sense of peril but some of the character actions are hard to buy into especially with such obvious foreshadowing like the climber that has an inherit medical condition who may become crippled, the unrequited lover, the anger fueled commander, the long lost love interest etc. Wu Jing is almost at superhero level and is there at every turn saving the day, it is at odds with the rest of the film where there is some semblance of realism.

Daniel Lee is competent action film director and is best known for Black Mask (1996), Dragon Blade (2005) and Dragon Squad (2015) favouring heavy stylized editing and sporadic camera movements, here Lee somewhat reigns in much of his signature style with shots extending longer than mere seconds. In the same year that has given us another bombastic “true story” which was the heavily embellished The Bravest (2019),The Climber follows pretty much the same framework and heavily pushes national pride and self-sacrifice for the good of the country. This in turn does affects the way characters are developed and shaped, with characters feeling more like fictional creations opposed to the real life counter parts they are supposedly portraying.

The action set pieces are engaging and there is a real sense of danger only distracted by some mediocre visual effects but coordinator Alan Ng Wing-Lun (Dragon Squad (2005) and Golden Job (2018)) implements some creative use of wire assisted pulls and prop usage. With cinematographer Tony Cheung complimenting the action with sweeping camera movements and tightly framed segments. The incredible locations gives the film maker the opportunity to shoot some impressive grand vistas and the clean white tones juxtaposing the dirty browns of the industrial setting of the first half of the film.

Booming superstar Wu Jing once again makes yet another smart move in his involvement in The Climbers, after his highly successful Wolf Warriors 2 (2017) and The Wandering Earth (2019). Wu Jing gives a strong performance eliciting strong sensibility, vulnerability and loyalty. Both Wu Jing and Zhang Ziyi’s romantic turmoil is heartfelt and there on screen chemistry is effecting. Zhang Ziyi gives a standout performance providing a fine balance of delicacy and a strong presence of command. Zhang Yi best known for his role in Operation Red Sea (2018) is pretty much angry throughout the film and lacks any real development but Zhang Yi displays his angst effectively. The heavily publicized appearance of Jackie Chan amounts to only little cameo appearance at the end of the film and is an older version of someone that came before even though he bares no resemblance to said character. The rest of the cast members all give fine performances if a little forgettable. The actors don’t always show restraint when it comes to national pride and for the Country moments, with them sometimes over emoting and spewing questionable dialogue.

The Climbers agenda is obvious from the get go and any semblance of realism is quickly removed with the heavy handed patriotism, but ignoring these factors the film is highly entertaining.