Review No.25: Red Light Revolution

So here we are one eighth of the way to achieving my goal of watching 200 films released this year and the next film is the first cinema release of the year to come to DVD. It's hardly surprising that Red Light Revolution has taken this quick to come to DVD as it hardly made a dent at the box office and in fact struggled to get a distributor a fact made evident by the director's introduction explaining how the distributors got on board and thanking me for renting the film. In addition to being the first DVD of this journey it is also the first subtitled film taking place as it does in China and focusing on one of life's eternal losers Shunzi who finds himself jobless and wifeless in one eventful afternoon. Going back to live with his parents he then ends up working selling weight loss drinks a thankless job made better by his friendship with pretty co-worker Lilli. After running into an old school friend Shunzi is convinced to buy a lot of adult stock and set up a sex shop thanks to a crazy supplier and Lilli who provides him with her grandmother's old shop. Shunzi fights it hard to set up shop but he gets a few regular customers however the film-maker then seemingly skips some character progression because it seems that the sex shop has livened up the neighbourhood so when the villainous market inspector comes around they rally round to help Shunzi save the shop.

The one positive thing to come out of Red Light Revolution is Jun Zhao who is able to portray this loveable loser thanks in no part to his overweight frame and physical expressions. His constantly frustrated expression adds itself well to Shunzi's journey but it may just be that the actor is frustrated over this unequal script. The problem with the film is that it never knows what it wants to be there is a lot of broad comedy such as when Shunzi and Lilli play with a box of dildos or the young virgin who is nervously frequenting the shop. On the other hand writer/director Sam Voutas wants this to be a study of a man who has always been trampled on by life and the last twenty minutes is fairly dark until we find out how Shunzi is able to turn his life around. This uneven tone means that I could never really fully enjoy the film but if Voutas had made this a broad comedy film then I may have invested more in as there were a few laughs in there by they were counterbalanced by an uneven tone seemingly suggesting that he never really knew what sort of film he wanted to make.

Verdict: A few laughs and an enjoyable central performance is outshone by a lack of focus in the writing and directing so I can only give it 4.5