Any fears that Ocean Heaven is going to be a worthy, big-star, disease-of-the-week melodrama are immediately put to rest by its opening scene, which leads the audience in one direction and then neatly pulls the carpet from under it. From Christopher Doyle\'s atypically unvarnished photography of the Qingdao locations to the straightforward performances of the small but well-chosen cast, there\'s a simplicity to the whole movie that\'s much to the credit of first-time director Xue Xiaolu. A screenwriter who previously worked on TV dramas, she also penned Chen Kaige\'s rather more fulsome Together (2002).
For a film that is virtually plotless, and depends much on performances and small behavioural details, there\'s no sense of drag across the tight, 93-minute running time. The main character is not so much the autistic son - played without exaggeration by Wen Zhang - but his average, blue-collar father, a devoted parent with an endless supply of patience for whom his son\'s future place in the world after his death is the one and only thing. With glasses and grey-flecked hair, the 47-year-old Li plays the role with an upbeat simplicity that mirrors the son\'s own child-like universe without showboating too much. There\'s never any doubt that this is a character performance by a major star, but it\'s a genuinely likable one, and a long way from the blank-faced Li of so many action movies.
Scoring by Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi is warm but not sentimental, and the strain of humour which runs right through the movie also prevents it from curdling in any well-meaning, politically correct juices. Like its lead character, Ocean Heaven is a small, unpretentious film with a big heart.
By Derek Elley
Derek ELLEY is Chief Film Critic of "Film Business Asia." Elley has been writing about East Asian cinema for over 35 years, especially Chinese-language films, and has arranged numerous seasons both in the U.K. and elsewhere. In 1998 he co-founded the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, devoted to mainstream Asian movies, and prior to joining "FBA" was senior film critic of U.S.-based entertainment trade paper "Variety".