Jet Li gets serious in the latest family weeper, Elizabeth Kerr reports.

In his continuing attempts to separate himself from his kung fu persona, Jet Li has ventured into that most regional of sub-genres: The Four-hanky Melodrama. That's not to say that South Korea, Japan and China have any kind of monopoly on the weepie romance or weepie family drama; everyone does them. But no one does them quite like they're done in Asia. Case in point? American television's Breaking Bad, a series about a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who's diagnosed with cancer and his rise to ruthless drug lord status as a means to provide for his family after death. That series, and many of the films and television like it in Western media, has a cynicism, gallows humor and matter-of-fact acceptance of mortality that results in a (sometimes) more nuanced product. Conversely, death from illness in Asia is the highest form of tragedy there is - especially for the young - and the art reflects that.

Then there's the other kind of tragedy - that being the Suffering Handicapped Person drama, which can be read as a blatant response to the general level of unease and intolerance disabled communities too often have to deal with in Asia. Characters "afflicted" with learning disabilities and autism and such are regularly rendered as trusting innocents that invariably showcase some hidden gift, meant to demand reverence from the characters around them as well as audiences. Again, it's not a purely Asian phenomenon (Rainman or Forrest Gump anyone?), and Western cinema only reflects a moderately more enlightened social attitude. That's usually evidenced by disabilities being a plot point designed to tell a story about intolerance. But the perceived innocence is front and center in Asia, and that's what separates the two. Occasionally, films combine the two narrative elements to sentimental and grandiose effect.

Ever since Akira Kurosawa splashed a bureaucrat with a pre-death mission on the screen in Ikiru in the 1950s, Asian film industries have been regularly cranking out emotional tragic dramas for the masses (many of the "best" are on television). The list includes Tokyo Story, A Moment to Remember, Funeral March, Christmas in August, Marathon, Mother, and a literal raft of TV series too lengthy to detail. It's a uniquely Asian phenomenon, of which writer-director Xue Xioalu's Ocean Heaven is the canon's latest addition to.

In Ocean Heaven Li plays Wang Xincheng, an aquarium technician and loving single dad of the autistic Dafu (Wen Zhang). The story begins with Wang and Dafu sitting in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, with an anchor tied to both their ankles. He tips them both into the water and waits to drown. Dafu, however, has other ideas, and being autistic simply reacts as best he knows - meaning he gets them out of the water. They head home and it's soon revealed that Wang has terminal liver cancer and, fearing for Dafu's well-being after he dies, decided to off them both. When his suicide attempt fails, Wang makes it his mission to teach Dafu how to fend for himself and find him a long-term home.

There is no doubt that Ocean Heaven is manipulative, hyper-emotional, and typically views the world through rose-colored glasses. In a (relatively) small provincial city, Wang and Dafu meet with zero intolerance, fear, and loathing from day to day. The community is supportive and the town is idyllic in its acceptance and understanding of Wang and Dafu's difficulties. If it's a realistic look at a single parent (also no big deal according to this film) struggling with the demands of an autistic child and the stress of impending mortality you're looking for, look elsewhere. Ocean Heaven is fantasy; the story unfolds in an idealized world where friends and neighbors pitch in to help, where employers are flexible with time, where doctors drop by the house with cancer medications, and where there are scores of welcoming institutions and residential options for the autistic. In the Yellow Pages. Can someone please point me in the direction of this Utopia?

But in a way, that's all right. Xue isn't making a documentary, nor is she trying to forge some sort of hard-hitting social critique. She's making a soft, vaguely uplifting movie about parental devotion for the masses. And for the most part, Li, in his most straight ahead dramatic role to date, sells it. With the exception of a few histrionic flashes, Li turns in a surprisingly modulated performance that swings from frustration with Dafu's inability to ride the bus to abject fear that he'll be abandoned completely. Xue, who wrote Chen Kaige's Together and makes her feature debut here, give Li and Wang plenty of support, too. For the most part young actor Wen rarely goes over the top in his interpretation of autism. TV veteran Dong Yong as Wang's boss Tang and stage pro Zhu Yuanyuan as his quietly enamored neighbor Chai provide the kind of grounded balance that keeps Ocean Heaven from flying off the rails and becoming a blubbery mess.

Another thing Ocean Heaven has going for it is a vivid visual palette realized by an army of the region's best behind the scenes artists: The life-affirming watery blue tone that pervades the film is provided by cinematographer Christopher Doyle, best known as Wong Kar-wai's DOP and a master of evocative, ethereal imagery; a potentially bombastic score is tempered by Japanese composer Joe Hisashi's (Departures, and Miyazaki Hayao's go-to composer) customary restraint; and Hong Kong production design Yee Chung Man (Storm Warriors, Perhaps Love) lends the proceedings the kind of understated, uncluttered backdrop the story demands.

For all its idealism and sentimentality, Ocean Heaven is remarkably unruffled, and it's downright dispassionate given Xue's heavy hand on Together. If you're allergic to this kind of cinema, chances are that the poster art alone is going to send you running from theater the box office anyway. But for those among us with a soft spot for an old-fashioned, unironic family tragedy, this could be your Friday night. And if the defiantly happy ending despite Wang's death (this is most definitely not a spoiler) is just too much for your cynical worldview, well, there's always Breaking Bad.

Ocean Heaven opened in Hong Kong Thursday.

(HK Edition 06/26/2010 page4)