Suppose
Marty McFly’s dad George was actually pretty cool and totally cut. He just made
a few bad investment decisions, like stock-piling beeper numbers and getting
sent to prison a few days before his pregnant wife delivered. That is sort of
what jerky grand prix racer Xu Tailang discovers when he is suddenly sent back
in time, from the year 2022 to just prior to his birth. He might just work out
all his issues with his small-town gang-leader father, if they aren’t killed by
a rival gang first in Han Han’s smash hit Duckweed
(trailer
here),
which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.
Xu
Tailang always resented his father Xu Zhengtai—a fact he makes abundantly clear
after winning a big race. Unfortunately, Xu takes an ill-advised victory lap
that proves he is not faster than a speeding locomotive. First his life flashes
before his eyes, or at least the highlights, so we can understand his fraught
father-son relationship. Then he wakes up in his father’s hometown, twenty-four
years earlier.
Despite
his weirdness, Xu Zhengtai quickly welcomes Tailang into the gang. It is a
small, but selective bunch, limited to his father, future real life Chinese
internet tycoon, Ma Huateng, and the loyal, but dumber than a bag full of
hammers Luo Yi (played by Han Han’s racing partner, Zack Guo). In a pressing
matter of concern for Tailang, his father seems utterly devoted to his
childhood sweetheart, but she does not have the right name to be the mother he
never had a chance to know. Meanwhile, a Hong Kong-backed syndicate is
encroaching on Zhengtai’s action.
Han
Han unleashes plenty of manipulative techniques, but the affable cast maintains
viewer good will all the way through. Eddie Peng doubles down on roguish charm
as the young Zhengtai and manages to be rather poignant as the graying,
remorseful father Zhengtai. TV mega-star Zhao Liying proves she also has plenty
of big-screen screen-presence as Zhengtai’s endearing fiancée. Deng Chao is
game as the straight man son, yet it is Guo who steals scene after scene as the
dim-witted but painfully earnest Luo.
