Article 20

Article 20

A corrupt system justifies itself in “Article 20,” a Chinese New Year legal thriller that is also a domestic farce, and, oh yeah, the latest movie from mainland hitmaker Zhang Yimou. Only someone as belligerent, self-contradictory and brilliant as Zhang (“Hero,” “The Big Parade”) could have pieced together the malformed components of “Article 20,” a state-approved crowd-pleaser about uh the right to self-defense.

This is also an office of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) co-production; as such, it is not surprising that Zhang’s latest climaxes with an unfathomably sincere monologue about how Chinese citizens deserve better. It’s incredibly cheesy, but it takes a while for this thing to curdle beyond repair, thanks mainly to the dynamic between Zhang and his uniformly excellent cast and editor(s?).

For a stretch of time in “Article 20,” the highs come frequent and fast enough that you’d be happy to keep following wherever Zhang & Co. go. SPP prosecutor Han Ming (Lei Jiayin) is conflict-averse; he is also our surrogate. Han gets reluctantly involved in the case against Hao Xiuping (Mandopop star Zhao Zanilia) her missing partner Wang (Yu Hewei). They were victims of harassment, and Hao rape, after borrowing money from Liu; he’s a violent loan shark whose wife sawed off one of Hao’s fingers.

Then Liu put Wang in a dog collar and beat his wife within an inch of her life, so Wang stabbed Liu 26 times; Liu died three days later in the hospital with every major organ punctured at least once under suspicious circumstances. So anyway: Han doesn’t want anything to do with any of these people understandably so! but they become his case anyway. His promotion rankles his idealistic colleague Lyu Lingling (Ye Gao) for reasons that are perfectly clear.

Meanwhile, Han tries to shield his anxious and hilariously nosy wife Li Maojuan (Li Ma) from the (false) belief that he’s having an affair with Lyu. But conflict is inevitable for Han given the ever escalating messes in both his work and personal life. Most notably: After challenging a well connected school bully who soon exits the picture but not before Yuchen racks up criminal charges represented by his pigheaded high-powered father, Director Zhang (Zhang Yi), Han has no desire to get involved; but he is anyway.

Because it is a pandering procedural where justice and fairness win out over selfish individuals, “Article 20” as a comedy about marriage is often just that. In real life, Zhang’s recent movies have been both helped and hurt by the close support of the mainland government. He still has a knack for hard-bitten, wide-ranging farce set among reluctant middlemen, soldiers, and government functionaries who must bargain with other go betweens to save their own skins often against their will. So it’s no wonder the best parts of “Article 20” revolve around Han and his wife, especially given Lei and Li’s chemistry and timing.

The movie’s dialogue credited to screenwriter Meng Li whizzes by in rat-a-tat screwball rhythm; commendably, Zhang (presumably with his editor Yongyi Li) gives Han and Li’s arguments an exhilaratingly merciless pace. Han also has some winning lines that would be funny no matter whom Lei were playing opposite. And yet it’s hard not to see Han and Li’s rocky partnership as the main event here: They bicker amusingly almost all the time. At one point he whines that he hid his work relationship with Lyu only to keep an “atmosphere” of peace with her.

“What kind of atmosphere do we have?” she snaps back.

“Harmonious!”

But at a certain point in “Article 20,” the hectic pace of conversation starts feeling like a tired dramatic convention rather than an extension of comic invention. Ironically, or maybe inevitably given how severe they become in tone, Han and Li’s disagreements grow less devastating as they grow more so.

After a while, though not at first, doesacticism overtakes Zhang’s breakneck speed in “Article 20.” This decline was perhaps also inevitable for SPP-approved propaganda product like this one; but it’s still frustrating considering how much promise and momentum Zhang & Co. generate as satirists in “Article 20,” rather than as jeremiad-writers.

It’s difficult, though not impossible, to imagine a mainstream Chinese comedy of recent years that’s both hysterically funny and sharply pointed in its social criticism. This year’s Lunar New Year racing comedy blockbuster “Pegasus 2” gets close (it’s also the holiday’s No. 2 grosser); there are many laughs to be had at the expense of bureaucratic absurdity in the recent office comedy “Johnny Keep Walking.” Then again, if someone as talented as Zhang can’t pull off feel good sensationalism when it brushes up against dicey material like this well, maybe nobody can. But if you concentrate on what works in “Article 20,” you might have a good time anyway.

Watch Article 20 For Free On Gomovies.