The Third Man in Her Life
| The Third Man in Her Life | |
|---|---|
 official film poster | |
| Traditional | 第三個男人 |
| Simplified | 第三个男人 |
| Mandarin | Dì Sān Gè Nánrén |
| Literally | The Third Man |
| Directed by | Yu Jie |
| Produced by | Zhang Jianmin |
| Written by |
|
| Starring |
|
| Music by | Cai Lu |
| Cinematography | Yu Shishan |
| Edited by | Zhang Longgen |
Production company | |
Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | China |
| Language | Mandarin |
The Third Man in Her Life is a 1988 Chinese whodunit film directed by Yu Jie.[1] Principally a detective story about a murder in the 1980s, the film is also a sad melodrama about the mass injustice and suffering under the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.
The story takes place in a fictional forested town called "Qiasuoya" in northeast China with a sizable Russian population and strong Eastern Orthodox Church influence. The film was shot in Arxan and Horqin Right Front Banner in Inner Mongolia.
Plot
A criminology professor (Wang Runshen) leads his students to Qiasuoya to investigate a recent murder. The victim is quickly identified as Shen Dashan (Ye Zhikang), who had just been released after seven years in prison. Shen was falsely accused and sentenced for 20 years during the Cultural Revolution, only because he offended Bai Hua (Wang Jianwei) who had a father in the revolutionary committee. The case has only recently been overturned, resulting in his release. Bai Hua thus emerges as the primary suspect. Bai flees from the police but is apprehended after a wild chase. While Bai admits he has tried to hire someone to kill Shen, no evidence exists that he has found an assassin.
The investigators also begin to question Shen's widow Li Jia (Wu Jing), a mother of 2 grownups. Rumors have that Li Jia slept with single man Li Jinyu (Qi Fusheng) while Shen was locked up, and this becomes the primary focus of the investigation. Teary-eyed, Li Jia admits to the extramarital affair, but explains that she had to solicit Li Jinyu's assistance because she was unable to raise and feed 2 children by herself during the extremely difficult years of Cultural Revolution. Li Jinyu collaborates her statement in a different interrogation.
The professor soon notices a third man in Li Jia's life — Jiefu (Adil Mijit), a man of Chinese-Russian parentage who had been Li Jia's lover in the early 1960s. Jiefu tells the professor that he was about to marry Li Jia when he was falsely accused of being a Soviet spy during the Cultural Revolution and sent to the forests for "reformed labor". Jiefu admits that he killed Shen because during a visit to Li Jia's house, he saw Shen savagely beating Li Jia. The professor believes that Jiefu saw the beating, but is also convinced he did not murder Shen, as the murder site in his story does not match forensics.
Li Jia eventually admits that she plotted and killed Shen because she could no longer tolerate his beating, but the professor knows that she is also lying. He had checked with the restaurant Shen was last seen, and by comparing the food Shen ordered with the contents in his stomach, the professor has determined the real date Shen was murdered — one day off from the day in Li Jia's story. This important day corresponds to the day Shen Dashan's son Shen Yang (Wang Kan) returns from the city by train for a brief visit. As he also found semen as well as a rare cosmetics on Shen Dashan's body, the professor reveals the truth: Shen Dashan was raping his stepdaughter Shen Jing (Liu Henan), and to save his sister Shen Yang accidentally killed his father. Li Jia falsely admitted to the crime to protect her children, and Jiefu, still not over her, falsely confessed to save her. It is also revealed that Shen Jing was herself a result of rape: her father was a Red Guard who raped and impregnated Li Jia during the Cultural Revolution (before he was killed by a rival Red Guards gang). While the killer is finally discovered and arrested, no one feels any closure. Shen had been a good family man, but 7 years of unjust confinement changed him into a wife-beating monster who raped his stepdaughter. The film ends with the investigators staring sadly and helplessly at a big river.
References
- ↑ Marion, Donald J. (1997). The Chinese Filmography: The 2444 Feature Films Produced by Studios in the People's Republic of China from 1949 through 1995. McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 612–13. ISBN 0-7864-0305-5.