OLD FISH (China, 2007)
Directed by: Gao Qunshu
Starring: Ma Guowei, Pan Xingyi, Chi Qiang, Lan Jinglin

Harbin, an ugly slushy city, as attractive as a half-built factory stuffed with squatters. Joint achingly cold, it’s a town where no one has ever heard of wallpaper and the predominant color scheme is water-stained concrete. And somewhere in Harbin there is a ticking bomb. Who do you call? Old Fish, the long-in-the-tooth member of the Harbin PD who was an army engineer and his constant mantra when faced with an explosive device is, “Let me try.” Starting as an anti-thriller, the movie unfolds like your typical Chinese realist drama but before you know it we’re up to our freezing cold ears in unexploded bombs, ancient land mines and rusty munitions in this ultra-realistic look at Chinese bomb disposal procedures, which apprently include putting a ticking explosive device in your bicycle basket and peddling like hell for the river.

The movie is written by an actual member of the Harbin bomb squad, and it’s populated with amateur actors who are mostly cops, including Old Fish himself who was previously a police officer. Things kick off when a bomb is found and because the State police don’t have a bomb squad, public security bureau is on a special case in yannan provice, army doesn’t know the type of bomb Old Fish has to take a look. Then there’s another bomb, and another. The movie soon becomes a constant flood of adrenaline, and the audience begins to feel sick to their stomachs as one tension inducing sequence after another comes at them, and Old Fish, armed with little more than an X-acto knife, some fishhooks and a bit of string tries to save as many lives as possible. But as the bombs pile up and the cops scramble all over the city you know that sooner or later they’re going to get exhausted and someone’s going to make a mistake and then...boom.

As Old Fish (aka Yu Liquing) steps out of his niche and engages in a battle of wits with his unseen opponent, the movie takes the time to dish out plenty of jokes, some so deadpan that you don’t even see them until they’re over. A lesson in nationalist history delivered to a junk merchant in front of a ticking cannister of nerve gas, a wife who says her husband can do anything and gets him on the bomb squad and the constant quoting of the sardonic motto, “Safety first.” Like TACTICAL UNIT – COMRADES IN ARMS, this is another ode to the common flatfoot who keeps us safe, a movie about the heroisms of the common man who puts his body between us and a bomb because, well, that’s his job.