On the Beat (1995 film)
| On the Beat | |
|---|---|
| Traditional | 民警故事 |
| Simplified | 民警故事 |
| Mandarin | Mín jǐng gù shì |
| Directed by | Ning Ying |
| Produced by |
Han Sanping Francesco Cosentino |
| Written by | Ning Ying |
| Starring | Li Zhanho Li Jian |
| Music by | Su Cong |
| Cinematography |
Zhi Lei Wu Hongwei |
| Edited by | Ning Ying |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Language | Mandarin |
On the Beat (Chinese: 民警故事; pinyin: Mín jǐng gù shì; literally: "People's Police Story") is a 1995 Chinese film directed by Ning Ying. It is the second film in Ning Ying's Beijing Trilogy, a collection of three films that follows the massive changes to Beijing in the last decades of the twentieth century. Whereas Ning's previous film, For Fun dealt with the older generation, On the Beat is firmly focused on the story of the middle-aged. I Love Beijing, meanwhile, would follow characters belonging Beijing's younger generations. On the Beat was coproduced by Eurasia Communications, Euskal Media and the state-operated Beijing Film Studio. Some funding was also from the International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund.
On the Beat follows a group of police officers in the Deshengmen Precinct during the slow months of winter. The policemen, stuck in the dull winter months of Beijing, get stuck in routine, only occasionally finding excitement, as when they chase after a rabid dog.
Released in 1995, On the Beat made the rounds of most of the major international film festivals, including Toronto, Telluride and San Sebastian, among others.
On the Beat consists mainly of a series of vignettes involving members of a local precinct in the Beijing Public Security Bureau. Filmed in the slow months of December, January, and February the members of the PSB find they have little in the way of substantive police work. Instead they spend time (and manpower) on small incidents like the chasing of a possibly rabid dog, the arrest of a small-time con artist, and the reprimanding of a man who sells posters of a woman in a bathing suit.
Though the incidents seem small, the PSB treats each with deadly seriousness, often to comedic effect. The film culminates in the arrest and intense interrogation of a man who may have insulted a police officer. Realizing that they have no evidence, the officers bluster as they attempt to avoid losing face.
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