Our movie expert discovers a little-known French-Thai production focussing on the seedy side of racing in Macau
Stretch (2011)
directed by Charles de Meaux; starring Nicolas Cazale, Fan Bingbing, Lowell Lo
For those film buffs ready to leave their comfort zones behind, horse racing can provide a rainbow variety of experience, primarily because the sport thrives on its common international language and a simple, consistent template, featuring small people on horses all leaving the starting gate at the same time with the intent on finishing first.
There are variations on the racetrack theme, of course, which is why a film like Stretch, a French-Thai production, is so very fascinating, despite flaws that probably would not be tolerated in a mainstream movie about horse racing.
The story begins in familiar fashion. After toiling in the French provinces, a young, ambitious jockey named Christophe gets a shot at the big time in a group race at Longchamp. Think Carnegie Hall for a kid from Poughkeepsie.
He makes the most of the opportunity with a vigorous finish, but then, just as the viewer is primed to witness a rags-to-riches ride, a forlorn Christophe is leaving the country, banned for six months for “one pill”, as his voiceover explains his failed drug test.
So it’s off to Macau, a last racing refuge for jockeys who have hit a wall back home, for one reason or another. Christophe gets a few tips from another French expat, but for the most part he’s on his own, wandering the neon nights of the casino-crazed island, located just across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong.
Hammy delight
Christophe lands a quick ride and proves his worth, which restores his confidence and catches the eye of the sleaziest gambler this side of Nathan Detroit, played with hammy delight by the composer and performer Lowell Lo, who also wrote the movie’s score.
At this point, the viewer is way ahead of Christophe, waiting for the race-fix shoe to drop. Complicating matters is his fully justifiable crush on Pansy, the young woman associated with the gambler, a feeling that eventually becomes mutual.
Christophe receives a brutal reminder of what happens to
jockeys who do not cooperate – a little bit of gore always spices up a racing flick – but still he struggles with the existential crisis at hand: once you’ve thrown a race, you’re a cheat for life.
Stretch is directed by Charles de Meaux (right), a native of Turkey whose artistic journey has traveled through every known media. In 2006, de Meaux produced the video Marfa Mystery Lights – A Concert for the UFOs in the Texas town notorious for its strange night sky illuminations.
Undulating white tube
His one-minute video You Should Be the Next Astronaut played for three months (every hour at the 59th minute) on the big screen towering over Times Square in Manhattan. The Ghost Train, a massive, undulating white tube, was installed by de Meaux at the Pompidou Center in Paris.
In more conventional movie circles, de Meaux was best known at the time of Stretch as the producer of several films made by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. They were red-
hot, fresh from the 2010 release Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a contemplative ghost story that won nothing less than the Palme d’Or at Cannes, a first for a film from Thailand.
For Stretch, de Meaux kept his more experimental impulses under control in the service of the racing plot, although this did not prevent him from savoring a collection of languid, dialogue free visuals that go from bewildering to quietly effective, while probing curious corners of Macau beyond the gaudy gaming tables.
To its credit, Stretch gets a lot of the racing details just right and the early scenes set in France have a documentary feel. Christophe speaks for viewers more familiar with racing in Europe and North America when he wonders at how the game is played in Macau, with jockeys riding hell-bent from the gate on deep sand tracks and gamblers running the show.
Dangling note
The movie ends on a dangling note, a bit indulgent on the part of the filmmaker but at least in keeping with the corner into which Christophe and Pansy have painted themselves. Sometimes, it’s okay to wonder, ‘What’s next?’
If nothing else, the closing scenes can be seen to predict the demise of racing in Macau, where the Thoroughbred sport was shuttered in 2024 after 35 years of operation.
Stretch is but a footnote to the colorful careers of the eclectic talent pool assembled by de Meaux.
His screenplay co-writers were the Canadian literary lion Douglas Coupland – credited, among other things, for coining the term Generation X – and the controversial Shanghai poet Mian Main, whose 2000 novel Candy was banned by Chinese authorities. In hyperbolic authoritarian fashion, Mian Mian was denounced as “a poster child for spiritual pollution”.
Fan Bingbing (right), the female lead, was a Chinese superstar and all-around glam package who was later caught up in a studio tax-evasion investigation that led to her exile from most of the East Asian film industry.
After four years without a screen credit, she made a comeback in The 355, a derivative fem-spy thriller that was way more entertaining than it should have been, thanks to Bingbing, Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, and Lupita Nyong’o.
Real life jockey Cedric Segeon is effective in a key role as a French rider who tries to guide Christophe through the Macau racing labyrinth.
Asian racing outposts
Segeon has made a good living hopscotching around Asian racing outposts, winning the Macau Derby among other marquee events, and eventually settling on the island of Mauritius. It was there Segeon ran afoul of the law in 2024 on charges that he violated a restraining order and failed to abide by support payments in an ongoing and obviously messy divorce.
Segeon’s film career began and ended with Stretch, but at least he was able to resume riding in Mauritius in late 2024.
Then there is David Carradine (right), better known to American TV audiences as Kwai Chang Caine of Kung Fu fame, and later as Bill in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill franchise.
Carradine, 72 at the time, was hired for Stretch to provide a token Hollywood name for international audiences. He lasted about a week during the production before he was found dead in his Bangkok hotel room, a victim of either foul play or self-inflicted asphyxiation, depending on how juicy you like your movie star scandals.
De Meaux got just enough from Carradine in the role of a master gambler to cut in a few scenes that don’t do much to advance the plot, a sad way to say goodbye to the guy honored by the National Board of Review as best actor of 1976 for his portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory.
In contrast, the life of Stretch star Nicolas Cazale (right) has been downright tame. A cursory internet search came up empty for any scandals. The native of France was a model, landed a few TV roles, then snagged some good reviews and award noms for early feature film performances.
When he made Stretch, Cazale was 33 but convincing as a much younger character. He managed to drop weight and remain buff enough to display a jockey’s physique, although he was not required to do much more than sit a racehorse and look handsome, while doubles did the rest. Cazale has worked steadily ever since.
The death of Carradine threw the production of Stretch into a brief tailspin, and the final cut was clearly adapted to account for the actor’s absence.
There was no festival impact and critics were not kind, which is hardly a surprise. Yet the movie deserves watching for its deep dive into a unique milieu.
• This viewer found Stretch through a trial subscription of the French Channel via Amazon Prime
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