Angels Wear White

Angels Wear White

When one watches the Chinese drama ‘Angels wear white’, it is almost impossible to do so without considering the #metoo movement and it’s associated scandals involving shocking sexual offenses that have been revealed in its aftermath. On one hand, this is coincidental since the film premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival just before all the news broke. On the other hand, it adds another layer of poignancy to this hard hitting drama which shows that such misconduct does not only occur within powerful establishments in typical locations but also takes place even in small sleepy coastal towns like this one in China where the story is set.

Not too far from a beach adorned with a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe in her iconic up skirt pose from ‘The Seven Year Itch’ stands a slightly seedy hotel where 15-year-old illegal immigrant Mia (Wen Qi) works tidying rooms and doing other menial tasks nobody else wants to touch. One evening, older colleague Lili (Peng Jing) goes off to see her punk boyfriend leaving Mia manning front desk; at one point she checks an old man and two schoolgirls into a pair of rooms.

Later that night over CCTV cameras monitoring premises, Mia sees man barge into girls’ room which he forces himself upon them all recorded on phone by her. As it turns out both girls are underage but their assailant happens to be none other than senior-ranking police officer when word gets out about attack town becomes shaken by resulting scandal.

At this stage narrative splinters off into three equally vital strands. Withholding crucial ID card has been major battle for Mia who could blow wide open case by handing over her video evidence but fears that if she does so it will expose her as illegal immigrant minor who may lose everything then again has little left anyhow.

Wen (Zhou Meijun) and Xin (Zhang Xinyue), two victims find themselves abused and betrayed by individuals entrusted with their care upwardly mobile parents of former are willing to drop charges against perpetrator if large sum paid which secures girl’s future whilst also saving face ruining reputation; latter’s negligent mother (Liu Weiwei) blames own child for entire incident openly hitting her around head & cutting most off hair as punishment.

Compared to others this might seem less challenging for lawyer Hao (Ke She) who represents Wen and Xin however while working tirelessly on building defense she gets reminded once again that justice system often fails to live up it’s ideals especially when obstructing those who persist doing what is right instead choosing look away.

The movie features a thrilling and strong drama that is made more potent by writer/director Vivian Qu’s decision to not cap the story at lurid melodrama—all of the given plot points have the biting bitterness of reality in them. Eventually, it becomes clear that Qu is less concerned with the specific crimes committed against the two young girls than she is in documenting the cruelties that women are subjected to on a daily basis because of this society’s casual sexism.

For instance, early on Mia is told by Lily’s sleazy boyfriend (Wang Yuexin) that he knows many people who would pay good money to take her virginity. As for these mothers, it turns out they are less upset about what happened to their daughters than they are about no longer being considered good marriage material due to their loss of virginity. Even worldly-wise Lily herself falls into this trap once when she has a painful surgical procedure intended to reconstruct her hymen so as one day she may enter into a respectable marriage.

Qu keeps things moving along at an engaging clip without ever letting them get too overamped and she benefits from several strong performances across the board. Wen Qi is terrific as Mia, which is easily the trickiest role here because she has to figure out how to make us sympathize with her even though she does any number of things that would seem designed to do just the opposite, albeit always in the name of self-preservation.

She is also quite good in one of only two unambiguously noble roles here as a lawyer who just wants some kind of justice done. The other one, also very good, comes from Le Geng as Wen’s initially absent father who ultimately turns out to be only parent involved who cares solely about finding some justice for his child instead of buying her off.

“Angels Wear White” does occasionally get a little too on-the-nose for its own good a lugubriously symbolic Marilyn Monroe statue, a couple of cuts to signs in the police station reading “SERVE THE PEOPLE” at times when something else entirely is being served.

However, for the most part this is a tough and unsparing drama that brings to life all too common of stories that people have been forced to live through over the years, in a manner that will be recognizable and relatable to viewers no matter where they are from. This is not exactly a barrel of laughs, but it is more interested in making us mad about what has long been permitted than making us laugh and determined to do something about it. In those respects, it cannot be denied that it succeeds.

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