China Moon
Encyclopedia
China Moon is a 1994
neo-noir
written by Roy Carlson, directed by John Bailey
, and starring Ed Harris
and Madeleine Stowe
.
) and Lamar Dickey (Benicio del Toro
) investigate a murder scene. Bodine tutors Dickey in the ways of homicide investigations, stressing that all murderers make stupid mistakes, which is how they get caught.
At a local bar, Bodine propositions Rachel Munro (Madeleine Stowe
) who blows him off. Rachel is married to wealthy banker Rupert Munro (Charles Dance
). Back at home, she gets drunk as she looks at a private investigator's photos of Rupert making love to one of his employees, Felicity. Rupert is intimidating and emotionally abusive towards Rachel, who decides to give in to Kyle's advances and start an affair with him.
At one point, the lovers row out on a lake at night. Kyle points out the large full moon and says that his mother called it a China Moon, because it looks like a giant china dish. His mother thought a China Moon made people do crazy things. The couple go skinny dipping in the lake. Their affair quickly picks up steam, and Kyle urges Rachel to divorce Rupert.
Soon after, Kyle and Lamar are called to the Munro's on a domestic disturbance complaint. They find Rachel badly beaten. Rupert is callously arrogant, dismissing his violence towards his wife as trivial. Kyle warns Rupert to leave her alone. Later that night, Rachel drives to Kyle's trailer and fantasizes about killing Rupert. She explains that she has bought a 9mm gun. She says that she could take a trip to Miami, drive back one night and kill him. Then she could return to her trip unseen, using it as an alibi. Kyle tries to talk her down, but she flees in a panic.
Rachel arrives at a hotel in Miami, and the concierge hands her an envelope which contains the picture of a rental car and its keys. Later, she leaves the hotel at night, without noticing Felicity sitting in the lobby. She gets in the rental car and drives back to her home. Meanwhile, Felicity enters her hotel room.
Instead of driving home, Rachel drives to Kyle's trailer, and he agrees to drive her home to get her things. He waits in the car as she packs a suitcase. Kyle does not see Rupert returning home, and when Rupert encounters Rachel in the act of leaving him, he flies into a rage. She gets her 9mm gun and shoots him twice in self defense. She stops Kyle from calling the police because she points out that she drove back from Miami without checking out of her hotel, just like her murder fantasy. She knows she would look guilty, and Kyle agrees to help her cover her tracks. Using his skills as a homicide detective, he helps her carefully clear the crime scene, even removing the bullets from the wall, spackling over the holes and painting them. They dump Rupert's body in the same lake where they first made love. Back at the house, Kyle turns on the humidifiers to erase any of his fingerprints.
Rachel returns to the hotel in Miami and has brunch by the pool the next morning. When she returns home, she sticks to Kyle's plan and calls Rupert's bank. Rupert's secretary informs Rachel that he has not been in to work, and Rachel reports him missing to the police. Kyle and Lamar are assigned to the case. During their interviews with Rachel, Lamar is highly skeptical of her story, pointing out all its inconsistencies. As they shoot the breeze at Rachel's house, Lamar casually hypothesizes that Rachel killed Rupert with the help of one of her many boyfriends. He tells Kyle that Rachel is well-known for wrapping men around her finger, and that, with the millions she would inherit from Rupert, it was highly likely that she got one of her boyfriends to help her kill Rupert and dispose of his body. Lamar starts to unnerve Kyle, who begins to doubt Rachel is telling him the truth.
Lamar gets a tip about a car being out at the lake on the night of the murder. The police divers find Rupert's body. During the autopsy, the coroner extracts a bullet from Rupert's chest. Lamar takes the bullet and hands it to Kyle, saying that it looks like a .38
. The detectives confirm that it is a .38, which is the caliber of gun that Kyle carries. During his first date with Rachel, she had inquired about the caliber of his gun.
Back at the Munro house, Kyle discovers the photos of Rupert and Felicity in Rachel's wardrobe. The crime scene technician discovers a bullet hole in the wall, and the extracted bullet is also a .38. Kyle is summoned to a meeting with his supervisor, who suspends him pending an investigation in to his involvement with the case. He orders Kyle to surrender his pistol.
Later that day, Lamar arrives at Kyle's trailer and asks him to come in for some more questioning. The pistol he surrendered did not match the serial number on his service weapon. Sitting in the back seat of Lamar's car, Kyle fixates on a compass
that sits on Lamar's dashboard. After a second, more forceful interrogation with his supervisor and Lamar, Kyle returns home and re-examines the pictures he discovered at Rachel's. He identifies Lamar's dashboard compass in the bottom of the frame of one of the pictures.
Felicity meets with Lamar, and he pays her for her part in the scheme, after she shows him a ticket to prove that she is leaving town. He promises to pay her the rest of her share once he has received his cut. Kyle sneaks into Rachel's house and confronts her about the scheme. She confesses that Rupert was going to leave her with nothing, and that Lamar had concocted the scheme to make sure she inherited all of Rupert's fortune. She swears that, despite the fact that Lamar had designated Kyle as the fall guy, she had fallen in love with him.
Kyle orders her to set up a meeting with Lamar at the bar where they met. At the bar, Kyle confronts Lamar. He confirms that Lamar had switched out the 9mm bullet for a .38 during the coroner inquest. He asks Lamar where his service revolver is, and Lamar says it is in his car. Kyle forces Lamar out to his car at gunpoint to retrieve the .38. The bartender sees Kyle's gun at Lamar's back and calls the police. They arrive as Kyle is searching for his pistol underneath the driver's seat in Lamar's car. Lamar calls out to the police that Kyle has a gun, and they open fire, killing Kyle. A distraught Rachel runs over to Kyle as he lays dying. She picks up the .38 and kills Lamar.
equipment:
Filmed in 1991 but "shelved" for three years
gross: $3,038,499 (USA) (sub-total)
1994 in film
1994 was a significant year in film.The top grosser worldwide was The Lion King, which to date stands as the highest-grossing traditionally-animated film of all time...
neo-noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
written by Roy Carlson, directed by John Bailey
John Bailey (cinematographer)
John Bailey, A.S.C. is an American Cinematographer and Film Director.Born in Moberly, Missouri, Bailey attended Santa Clara University and Loyola University Chicago. During his junior year he studied German language and culture at the University of Vienna, where he developed an appreciation for...
, and starring Ed Harris
Ed Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
and Madeleine Stowe
Madeleine Stowe
Madeleine Mora Stowe is an American actress. She rose to prominence appearing in films such as Stakeout, Revenge, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, China Moon, 12 Monkeys, and We Were Soldiers...
.
Plot
The film opens as detectives Kyle Bodine (Ed HarrisEd Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
) and Lamar Dickey (Benicio del Toro
Benicio del Toro
Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez is a Puerto Rican and Spanish actor and film producer. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award for his role as Javier Rodríguez in Traffic . He is also known for his roles as Fred Fenster in The Usual...
) investigate a murder scene. Bodine tutors Dickey in the ways of homicide investigations, stressing that all murderers make stupid mistakes, which is how they get caught.
At a local bar, Bodine propositions Rachel Munro (Madeleine Stowe
Madeleine Stowe
Madeleine Mora Stowe is an American actress. She rose to prominence appearing in films such as Stakeout, Revenge, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, China Moon, 12 Monkeys, and We Were Soldiers...
) who blows him off. Rachel is married to wealthy banker Rupert Munro (Charles Dance
Charles Dance
Walter Charles Dance, OBE is an English actor, screenwriter and director. Dance typically plays assertive bureaucrats or villains. His most famous roles are Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown , Dr Clemens, the doctor of penitentiary Fury 161, who becomes Ellen Ripley's confidante in Alien 3 ,...
). Back at home, she gets drunk as she looks at a private investigator's photos of Rupert making love to one of his employees, Felicity. Rupert is intimidating and emotionally abusive towards Rachel, who decides to give in to Kyle's advances and start an affair with him.
At one point, the lovers row out on a lake at night. Kyle points out the large full moon and says that his mother called it a China Moon, because it looks like a giant china dish. His mother thought a China Moon made people do crazy things. The couple go skinny dipping in the lake. Their affair quickly picks up steam, and Kyle urges Rachel to divorce Rupert.
Soon after, Kyle and Lamar are called to the Munro's on a domestic disturbance complaint. They find Rachel badly beaten. Rupert is callously arrogant, dismissing his violence towards his wife as trivial. Kyle warns Rupert to leave her alone. Later that night, Rachel drives to Kyle's trailer and fantasizes about killing Rupert. She explains that she has bought a 9mm gun. She says that she could take a trip to Miami, drive back one night and kill him. Then she could return to her trip unseen, using it as an alibi. Kyle tries to talk her down, but she flees in a panic.
Rachel arrives at a hotel in Miami, and the concierge hands her an envelope which contains the picture of a rental car and its keys. Later, she leaves the hotel at night, without noticing Felicity sitting in the lobby. She gets in the rental car and drives back to her home. Meanwhile, Felicity enters her hotel room.
Instead of driving home, Rachel drives to Kyle's trailer, and he agrees to drive her home to get her things. He waits in the car as she packs a suitcase. Kyle does not see Rupert returning home, and when Rupert encounters Rachel in the act of leaving him, he flies into a rage. She gets her 9mm gun and shoots him twice in self defense. She stops Kyle from calling the police because she points out that she drove back from Miami without checking out of her hotel, just like her murder fantasy. She knows she would look guilty, and Kyle agrees to help her cover her tracks. Using his skills as a homicide detective, he helps her carefully clear the crime scene, even removing the bullets from the wall, spackling over the holes and painting them. They dump Rupert's body in the same lake where they first made love. Back at the house, Kyle turns on the humidifiers to erase any of his fingerprints.
Rachel returns to the hotel in Miami and has brunch by the pool the next morning. When she returns home, she sticks to Kyle's plan and calls Rupert's bank. Rupert's secretary informs Rachel that he has not been in to work, and Rachel reports him missing to the police. Kyle and Lamar are assigned to the case. During their interviews with Rachel, Lamar is highly skeptical of her story, pointing out all its inconsistencies. As they shoot the breeze at Rachel's house, Lamar casually hypothesizes that Rachel killed Rupert with the help of one of her many boyfriends. He tells Kyle that Rachel is well-known for wrapping men around her finger, and that, with the millions she would inherit from Rupert, it was highly likely that she got one of her boyfriends to help her kill Rupert and dispose of his body. Lamar starts to unnerve Kyle, who begins to doubt Rachel is telling him the truth.
Lamar gets a tip about a car being out at the lake on the night of the murder. The police divers find Rupert's body. During the autopsy, the coroner extracts a bullet from Rupert's chest. Lamar takes the bullet and hands it to Kyle, saying that it looks like a .38
.38 ACP
The .38 ACP also known as the .38 Auto was introduced at the turn of the 20th century for the Browning designed Colt M1900. The cartridge headspaces on the rim. It had first been used in his Model 1897 prototype, which Colt did not produce...
. The detectives confirm that it is a .38, which is the caliber of gun that Kyle carries. During his first date with Rachel, she had inquired about the caliber of his gun.
Back at the Munro house, Kyle discovers the photos of Rupert and Felicity in Rachel's wardrobe. The crime scene technician discovers a bullet hole in the wall, and the extracted bullet is also a .38. Kyle is summoned to a meeting with his supervisor, who suspends him pending an investigation in to his involvement with the case. He orders Kyle to surrender his pistol.
Later that day, Lamar arrives at Kyle's trailer and asks him to come in for some more questioning. The pistol he surrendered did not match the serial number on his service weapon. Sitting in the back seat of Lamar's car, Kyle fixates on a compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...
that sits on Lamar's dashboard. After a second, more forceful interrogation with his supervisor and Lamar, Kyle returns home and re-examines the pictures he discovered at Rachel's. He identifies Lamar's dashboard compass in the bottom of the frame of one of the pictures.
Felicity meets with Lamar, and he pays her for her part in the scheme, after she shows him a ticket to prove that she is leaving town. He promises to pay her the rest of her share once he has received his cut. Kyle sneaks into Rachel's house and confronts her about the scheme. She confesses that Rupert was going to leave her with nothing, and that Lamar had concocted the scheme to make sure she inherited all of Rupert's fortune. She swears that, despite the fact that Lamar had designated Kyle as the fall guy, she had fallen in love with him.
Kyle orders her to set up a meeting with Lamar at the bar where they met. At the bar, Kyle confronts Lamar. He confirms that Lamar had switched out the 9mm bullet for a .38 during the coroner inquest. He asks Lamar where his service revolver is, and Lamar says it is in his car. Kyle forces Lamar out to his car at gunpoint to retrieve the .38. The bartender sees Kyle's gun at Lamar's back and calls the police. They arrive as Kyle is searching for his pistol underneath the driver's seat in Lamar's car. Lamar calls out to the police that Kyle has a gun, and they open fire, killing Kyle. A distraught Rachel runs over to Kyle as he lays dying. She picks up the .38 and kills Lamar.
Cast
- Ed HarrisEd HarrisEdward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
- Kyle Bodine - Madeleine StoweMadeleine StoweMadeleine Mora Stowe is an American actress. She rose to prominence appearing in films such as Stakeout, Revenge, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, China Moon, 12 Monkeys, and We Were Soldiers...
- Rachel Munro - Charles DanceCharles DanceWalter Charles Dance, OBE is an English actor, screenwriter and director. Dance typically plays assertive bureaucrats or villains. His most famous roles are Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown , Dr Clemens, the doctor of penitentiary Fury 161, who becomes Ellen Ripley's confidante in Alien 3 ,...
- Rupert Munro - Patricia Healy - Adele
- Benicio del ToroBenicio del ToroBenicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez is a Puerto Rican and Spanish actor and film producer. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award for his role as Javier Rodríguez in Traffic . He is also known for his roles as Fred Fenster in The Usual...
- Lamar Dickey - Tim PowellTim PowellTim Powell is a former Australian rules footballer who played with Richmond and Carlton in the Australian Football League .Powell, originally from Berrigan, was used up forward and on the half back flanks while at Richmond...
- Fraker - Pruitt Taylor VincePruitt Taylor VincePruitt Taylor Vince is an American award-winning character actor who has made many appearances in film and television.-Personal life:Vince was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
- Daryl Jeeters
Development
Shot in DeLuxe color on location in Florida, using PanavisionPanavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product...
equipment:
- BartowBartow, FloridaBartow is the county seat of Polk County, Florida, United States. Founded in 1851 as Fort Blount, the city was renamed in honor of Francis S. Bartow the first brigade commander to die in combat during the American Civil War. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2000 Census, the city had a...
, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, USA - LakelandLakeland, FloridaLakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located approximately midway between Tampa and Orlando along Interstate 4. According to the 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 94,406...
, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, USA - TampaTâmpaTâmpa may refer to several villages in Romania:* Tâmpa, a village in Băcia Commune, Hunedoara County* Tâmpa, a village in Miercurea Nirajului, Mureş County* Tâmpa, a mountain in Braşov city...
, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, USA
Filmed in 1991 but "shelved" for three years
Reception
Box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
gross: $3,038,499 (USA) (sub-total)
- Received at 44% rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Soundtrack
The following songs are used in the film:- "Well, Well, Well, Baby-La"
- "Tell Me What I Want to Hear"
- "Rack 'Em Up"
- "Pink Lemonade"
- "Remember Slow Fox?"
External links
- China Moon at IMDb
- China Moon Reviews at Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...