Slick as a whistle

From the 2013 hit Finding Mr Right to its follow-up blockbuster Book of Love in 2016, Xue Xiaolu has enhanced her status as one of the highest-grossing female directors in China in recent years.

Despite both films having demonstrated her talent for directing romance flicks, the director surprisingly says love stories are not her favorite subject.

"Actually, I've always liked crime thrillers that are driven by twists in plotlines," says Xue, during a recent interview.

The Beijing native－whose directorial debut Ocean Heaven made a splash in 2010－has now fulfilled her long-held desire to direct a crime thriller.

Her latest outing, The Whistleblower, which teams up A-list stars Tang Wei and Lei Jiayin, was simultaneously released in China, the United Kingdom and the United States on Dec 6, and in Australia on Dec 12.

Her inspiration for the movie goes back to 2009, when Xue read a news story that a Chinese-Australian businessman was detained on suspicion of receiving bribes, which prompted her to research other similar real-life cases.

In 2013, Xue contacted the headquarters of FBI in Washington DC, and gained access to conduct interviews with people involved in other international bribery cases. She also visited two private investigation agencies in the US capital as detectives from such firms are often hired to take part in probes when a major corporate is involved in a scandal.

After discovering that most of these cases were exposed by "whistleblowers", Xue realized the term－which refers to insiders who report illegal trading or other activities－was still a fresh concept to Chinese audiences.

"Whistleblowers are very brave individuals. When they choose to speak out, they place themselves and even their families in peril, taking a high-stakes risk that could ruin their career prospects," says Xue.

With the idea of depicting an ordinary person-turned-hero movie, she convinced producer Bill Kong－known for Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's Hero－to get on board as one of the film's major financiers.

Graduating as a literature major from the Beijing Film Academy, Xue initially worked as a scriptwriter in the film and TV industry, gaining recognition for penning such hits as Don't Talk to Strangers (2001) and Autumn Rain (2005).

Despite also working as a deputy professor of literature at the academy, the writer-director doubted her ability to write a successful suspense story. So she gathered together two teams of storytellers－one group of writers from China and one from Hollywood－to jointly develop "the basic structure of the tale" in late 2015.

After a script-polishing process spanning 2016 and 2017, the story－which is set in China, Australia and the landlocked African country of Malawi－finally began to take shape, unfolding the story of a Chinese expatriate working for an Australian energy company who stumbles upon an old flame, the wife of the head of a Chinese mining group.

When the two rekindle their former romance, their controversial relationship leads to an intercontinental adventure that sees the duo try to unravel a large-scale bribery case and an international trade deal that threatens the lives of an entire city's population.

With The Whistleblower as her third feature directed by Xue, Tang says her new role as a wife is more complicated than her previous lead characters in Finding Mr Right and Book of Love.

Speaking of her role as a wife who helps her husband receive bribes but is later betrayed and hunted by hitmen dispatched by her ruthless spouse, Tang describes her character as a flawed soul plagued by desperation and fear who eventually finds redemption.

"I have worked with Xue for more than seven years. We understand each other quite well. She knows who I am and what kind of characters I am capable of playing," says Tang.

Shooting to fame with the blockbuster How Long Will I Love You and the phenomenal hit series The Longest Day in Chang'an, Lei says he was attracted to the script and the complex role depicting the struggle between his family and his past, which offered him space to act.

However, even with its stellar cast and an established director, the movie has appeared not to have lived up to the expectations of many.

Opening on a competitive Friday facing off two powerful rivals, Hollywood blockbuster Jumanji 2: The Next Level, and Cannes-nominated film The Wild Goose Lake, Xue's big-budget thriller had grossed just 49 million yuan ($6.99 million) as of Wednesday.

And its ratings on popular review sites also fell short, garnering 6 points out of 10 on Douban and 6.9 points out of 10 on Mtime.

It also received some controversial feedback, with viewers commenting that the plotline of the story, which runs for 139 minutes, lacked coherence and credibility, while other criticized the movie for failing to take a moral stance on the subject of infidelity.