Tag: Mandarin

Only the River Flows (河边的错误, Wei Shujun, 2023)

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Spoiler warning

In the opening moments of Wei Shujun’s Only the River Flows (河边的错误, Hébiān de Cuòwù) children run through an abandoned building playing cops and robbers amid the ruins of a changing China. One could argue that detective Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) is little different from the boy who chases after the other children with a plastic toy gun in his hand and an apparent love of justice in his heart only to enter a room and find himself on the edge of precipice looking down on a digger several floors below already sweeping up the rubble while Ma and his police partner look on obliviously. 

Wei fully recreates the aesthetics of sixth generation cinema, filming on grainy 16mm with a score that immediately echoes the films of the 1990s. Yet this small town in southern China is also a noirish place full of dank corridors and crumbling buildings that reflect the slow death of the old factory system along with the accompanying anxiety and displacement. Ma Zhe is also somewhat displaced. As he’s first introduced it’s as the only plainclothes detective in a room full of policemen in military uniform. His genial boss sells a message of “collective glory” that sounds somewhat outdated and is continually undermined by the fact he seems to do little himself and in fact continually instructs Ma to close the case he is working on even if he isn’t really convinced that primary suspect really is the guilty party. 

Based on a novel by Yu Hua, the film’s Chinese title more accurately means “a mistake on the river bank” which could refer to the murder itself, a strange case of an apparently well liked old lady killed with a sharp object, or to an encounter Ma later has with the suspect who is referred to only as “The Madman”. Apparently adopted by the old woman, Granny Four (Cao Yang), to stave off loneliness after her husband’s death (presumably they had no children of their own) the Madman is middle-aged with some kind of learning difficulties and otherwise mute and docile never having displayed any signs of violence or volatility. Yet in his way Ma is also a “madman”, increasingly out of touch with objective reality and driven near out of his mind by his preoccupation with the case. 

Pushed past his limit, Ma feels himself stalked and eventually descends into a lengthy dream sequence in which he watches his recollections projected on a cinema screen only for the negative to dissolve in flames as if it were burning a hole in his memory. His own perceptions are not reliable as confirmed by the confusion surrounding a commendation he received at a previous posting that he can no longer find, while a friend he contacts says he can’t remember him every receiving it and would have been surprised if he had as back then Ma was drinking quite heavily. Overburdened by the case, he begins drinking again and is also filled with paternal anxiety while his pregnant wife spends her time to trying to construct the image of their family by completing a jigsaw puzzle featuring a picture of a mother and child. 

The couple are told, by a very unsympathetic doctor, that there is a small chance the baby may be born with a genetic abnormality that could result in cognitive impairment. While Ma leans towards an abortion (the one child policy in this era perhaps influencing his decision) his wife is determined to keep it, calling Ma a heartless man but also suggesting that the fate that has befallen him is some kind of karmic retribution. He feels the Madman in himself echoed in the fate that awaits his child and is unwilling to accept it, wondering what their life would be like with the world the way it is.

His sense of “madness” is centred in his individuality as the member of a collective and something that he finds echoed in the frustrating dead ends of his case. Several witnesses saw the body but did not report it, fearful of their own secrets being exposed. More deaths soon occur, not exactly related to the first but somehow as a result of it as if murder were catching and Ma is a point of infection bringing a hidden truth to light that accidentally exposes something others would have preferred remain private. Ma’s quest is to quell the madman within himself, as perhaps he does in once again putting on his uniform and joining the collective even if it means accepting their truth above his own or the doubts in his heart. A brief coda featuring Ma and his wife happily bathing their son in an atmosphere of warmth and comfort might suggest that order has been restored were it not for the unsettling look in the child’s eyes in the film’s final frame. Beguiling and mysterious, the film lends itself to multiple viewings in its consistently slippery realities and noirish sense of existential dread as Ma attempts to find himself amid the contradictions of ‘90s China in a land very much under construction. 

Only the River Flows screened as part of this year’s BFI London Film Festival and will be released in UK & Irish cinemas in spring 2024 courtesy of Picturehouse Entertainment.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan (前任4：英年早婚, Tian Yusheng, 2023)

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Why do people get married? In the fourth instalment of the popular Ex-Files rom-com franchise,The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan (前任4：英年早婚, qiánrèn 4: yīngnián zǎohūn) the guys are beginning to feel their age and settling down is now it seems on the cards but for Meng Yun (Han Geng) at least it’s not so simple despite receiving some unexpected medical news that undermines his sense of youth and masculinity. As a single urbanite, he’s become set in his ways and used to living alone while haunted by the spectres of old love and missed opportunities. 

Yu Fei (Zheng Kai) meanwhile has been somewhat bamboozled into proposing to his slightly younger girlfriend of three years Ding Dian (Zeng Mengxue) who is herself on the fence about the idea of marriage. The couple end up opting for what they describe as a “marriage cooling off period” but is really just a trial run while they figure out if they can actually live together. To begin with it’s more difficult than expected as both struggle to transition from “dating” to “settled”, each on their best behaviour at home and engaged in a constant game of oneupmanship over household chores trying to prove how considerate they are to each other which is as they begin to realise exhausting. But deciding to just be themselves doesn’t quite work either as they quickly descend into slobbishness with no one taking care of domestic tasks each assuming it’s the other’s responsibility.

To try and work out their differences they come up with a solution that’s both very mature and not in turning their family meetings into drinking games in which the person who recognises they’re in the wrong has to take a shot. The kinds of things they argue about are the usual points of tension like leaving the cap off the toothpaste or waiting too long to wash your smalls, though before long more serious cracks start to appear such as in their different approaches to money management with Ding Dian keen to set up a household joint account and Yu Wei resentful of what he sees as an intrusion into his financial freedom in order to force him to be more responsible about his spending. 

It’s this idea of “freedom” that seems to be keeping the guys from settling down, but as someone later says to Meng Yun it might be his desire for “freedom” that’s holding him back. An ageing Casanova, Meng Yun is hounded by his mother about getting married while otherwise lamenting his descent into solitude and acknowledging that he may now be so afraid of a return to loneliness following a breakup or else a change in his routine that he’s losing interest in starting new relationships which is one reason he’s badgered into blind dates with women looking to get married. He’s not sure if marriage really is the “tomb of love” as some describe it, but can’t see what the point is or why it’s any different to being in a longterm committed relationship without a certificate to prove it. 

In many ways his battle is with looming middle age as he begins to wonder if he’s too old to change his ways and if solitude is what he’s choosing for the rest of his life, while Yu Wei conversely wrestles with the demands of adult responsibility in learning to accept a little more give and take in his life. The film flirts with the idea that Meng Yun may get back together with one of his many exes, in particular Lin Jia (Kelly Yu Wenwen) who seems to be the one that got away, but refreshingly falls back on the idea that some things aren’t meant to last and it’s better to let them go. Meanwhile, Meng Yun is himself a little sexist and chauvinistic in his dealings with his many blind dates, failing to consider the woman he’s talking to may be a doctor rather than a patient rushing out to meet him after undergoing major surgery and hurt after being rejected out of hand for his educational background and financial profile despite doing more or less the same thing himself scrolling past women who don’t match his ideals. 

Both men are in many ways selfish and immature, but also becoming more aware of their flaws and on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to the possibility of change. Despite having met a potential soulmate in philosophical lawyer Liu Liu, Meng Yun can’t decide if it’s worth the risk of abandoning his solitude or if he’ll ever be able to give up the ghost of lost love and open himself to a greater emotional intimacy. A little more melancholy than previous instalments, the film ponders urban loneliness and the trade-offs involved in a life of “freedom” while leaving the door ajar for middle-aged love in the life of the increasingly lovelorn Meng Yun. 

The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan is currently previewing in UK cinemas ahead of a 6th October opening courtesy of CineAsia.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Best is Yet to Come (不止不休, Wang Jing, 2020)

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A man denied a fair chance in life because of his impoverished background comes to identify with the plight of those carrying the hepatitis B virus in Wang Jing’s true life drama, The Best is Yet to Come (不止不休, bùzhǐ bùxiū). Inspired by the story of Han Fudong, a journalist who exposed the societal prejudice against those with a previous diagnosis of the disease, the film’s Chinese title “no pause no rest” makes clear how tirelessly he strived to reveal the truth even at the potential cost of destroying his dream of becoming a professional reporter. 

Han Dong (Bai-Ke) came to Beijing in 2003 in the hope of landing a job at a paper, but just like everywhere else journalism is a largely closed profession almost impossible to break into without elite qualifications and connections. At a jobs fair, Han Dong tries to pass off his reluctance to hand over a CV as a recruitment tactic to get people to remember him, circulating copies of his portfolio instead though recruiters quickly lose interest on realising they are all self-published articles posted online. Once he admits that he only finished middle school, it’s game over no matter how talented a writer and investigator he may turn out to be. 

It’s this sense of unfairness, of being turned away on the grounds of a few words on a piece of paper that eventually leads him to sympathise with those carrying the hepatitis B virus after investigating a company that claims it buys blood, discovering that they provide a service helping people to forge health certificates for job and school applications. Vox pop-style interviews recreated in the manner of the time feature several people describing the various ways their lives have been ruined simply because they happen to carry the virus, many of them infected since birth or early childhood. One man has been trying to apply for jobs and graduate schools for several years but finds the offers are always withdrawn after the health screening, while another woman recounts that her fiancé cancelled their engagement because his family could not accept someone with hepatitis B. 

This is also in the immediate aftermath of the SARS epidemic which perhaps caused a preoccupation with infectious disease which may be largely unfounded in the relative difficulty of passing on the hepatitis B virus. After landing a golden opportunity of an unpaid internship compensated only with 50% article fees, Han Dong finds himself conflicted. He knows the forgery operation is illegal and a threat to public health, but also cannot blame the people who make use of it when their lives have been rendered so impossible that is difficult for them simply to live. An early assignment had seen him cover a mine collapse and witness a destraught mother bounced into accepting compensation for her son’s death while shouted at by the foreman (played by film director Jia Zhangke who also produced) for having the temerity to ask to see his body. Han Dong got a front-page byline as co-author with his mentor figure, Huang (Zhang Songwen), but wonders what the point is if nothing ever changes and the truth is not enough on its own. 

For obvious reasons, films about crusading journalists are rare in Chinese cinema given that whistleblowing is not regarded as a virtue and those who try to expose wrongdoing are often shouted down or hounded into silence as seen with the doctor who drew attention to the poor medical practices in rural blood clinics that caused an HIV epidemic in farming communities, and most recently with the physician who tried to raise awareness of the new respiratory illness that later developed into a global pandemic. Journalists who report problematic stories can also find themselves facing prosecution and imprisonment. Han Fudong’s writings did however lead to an eventual change in the law and the destigmatisation of hepatitis B while he himself overcame the educational elitism of the contemporary society to achieve his dreams of becoming a professional reporter. As such, Wang’s dramatisation of his life may be in a way subversive if subtly so in hinting at a greater role for a currently not so free press in the modern China while also embracing a central philosophy that one need not simply accept an unacceptable status quo but actively reject and challenge it and that by doing so something might actually change. 

The Best is Yet to Come screens in Chicago Sept. 30 as part of the 17th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema 

International trailer (English subtitles)

Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms (封神第一部：朝歌风云, Wuershan, 2023)

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A bad ruler, like a bad father, has only bad lessons to teach his sons and will receive the same in kind in Wuershan’s beautifully produced fantasy epic, Creation of the Gods 1: Kingdom of Storms (封神第一部：朝歌风云, Fēng Shén Dìyī Bù: Zhāogē Fēngyún). Inspired by the classic work of 16th century literature also known as Investiture of the Gods which serves as a kind of foundation myth, the film is the first of three and a 10-year labour of love from the director that began shooting in 2018 and took nearly four years to complete post-production. 

As the opening title card explains, the film focusses on the fall of the Shang dynasty at the hands of its last king and King of All the Realms Yin Shou (Fei Xiang), known posthumously as King Zhou. He is first introduced, however, through the eyes of the young man that is really the hero of the tale, Ji Fa (Yu Shi), who describes him as a hero of the kind he dreams of becoming. Yin Shou is charged with leading an attack on the compound of rebellious lord Su Hu who has refused to pay his taxes, taking with him the four hostage foster sons of the primary dukes along with that of Su Hu himself. The boy is sent to plead with him but gets no reply. In a show of what seems like kindness, Yin Shou asks him what sort of father his must be to give no reply and formally adopts the boy but only in the knowledge that honour dictates he now take his own life as proof of his loyalty to the Shang. 

These young men, Ji Fa included, are forced to ask themselves to whom they owe their loyalty, a man who gave them up and may long have forgotten them or Yin Shou who has in a sense raised them and demands their loyalty. Ji Fa is fiercely loyal to Yin Shou and thinks him everything a good father, a good commander and eventually king should be. Yet Yin Shou has extremely strong second son syndrome and resents his father and older brother for treating him as an also ran. Ji Fa meanwhile is still naive and egotistical, coming to the palace dreaming of becoming “a hero” with only a superficial understanding of what that would mean and easily swayed by Yin Shou’s majesty while Yin Shou in turn rejects his own son ironically fearful of him as a rival having watched the old king die at the hands of his brother while privately pleased that he will finally take his rightful place on the throne only to be told that the kingdom is in peril and the only way to save it is to commit public self-immolation. 

When the legendary heroes Jiang Ziya (Huang Bo), Nezha (Wu Yafan), and Yang Jian (Cisha) turn up with a magic scroll that can undo the Great Curse bearing down on the land, Yin Shou describes it as blessing on realising the talisman gains in power the more souls it receives. There may be something a little chilling the contemporary echoes of his paranoid authoritarianism as he actively begins to round up subversive elements even as he takes as a mistress the daughter of a man he beheaded who in reality took her own life and has been possessed by a fox spirit though it is also quite ironic that it is Su Daji (Narana Erdyneeva) who will bring down the Shang. 

In any case, Wuershan brings the classic tale to life with a sense of magic and wonder painstakingly recreating the fantasy world of feudal China with its beautiful landscapes marred by chaotic infighting and destabilised by dysfunctional filiality. In the end, Ji Fa will return to his true father and with him the path of righteousness which will overcome the Great Curse and begin to restore order laying the foundations for the Chinese society. Meanwhile, in this age of demons and strange creatures, interventions from the heavens and the mortal world in so much chaos that Nezha has been brought in to help, Wuershan discovers a kind of soulfulness embracing the timeless quality of this ancient mythological tale yet grounding it in a well honed sense of emotional reality.

Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms is in UK cinemas now courtesy of CineAsia.

Trailer (Simplified Chinese / English sutbtitles)

Seven Days in Heaven (父後七日, Essay Liu & Wang Yu-Lin, 2010)

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A young woman embarks on what she describes as the most ridiculous journey of her life after her father passes away and she must return to her hometown for a series of incredibly involved traditional funeral rites in Essay Liu and Wang Yu-Lin ’s lighthearted drama Seven Days in Heaven (父後七日, fù hòu qī rì). Perhaps the intent is more to keep the mourners occupied in a slow burn dissolve of their grief than it is to console a parting soul but in any case Mei finds herself meditating on the past and her already fading memories of her late father. 

The strangeness begins at the hospital where Mei (Wang Li-Wen) and her brother Da-zhi (Chen Cha-Shiang) are repeatedly asked to explain to their father, who has just died, that they are taking him home. In the transport ambulance they ask if the family is Buddhist or Christian, and then simplify the question to whether they use incense sticks when a confused Mei is uncertain how to answer though as it turns out the rites they will be performing are largely Taoist. Anyway, the driver accidentally puts in the wrong tape and they get a blast of the Hallelujah chorus before he switches over to a series of sutras instead. A similar confusion sets in once they arrive back at the house where the funeral is being managed by a distant relative who works as a Taoist priest performing rituals largely concerned with death. 

A running gag sees these familial relationships so tangled that they need lengthy explanations, Yi (Wu Peng-Fong) the priest explaining to Mei’s cousin Zhuang (Chen Tai-hua) that he should have been calling him “brother” and not “uncle” while as it turns out Yi still carries a torch for Zhuang’s mother, Feng (Angie Wang), who left him to work in another town and married a wealthy man. Currently in Paris, she does not return for her father’s funeral and sends her son instead who is equally mystified by these strange rituals and decides to film them as part of a university project. 

Yi consults some religious calendars and schedules the days of the funeral accordingly from when they close the coffin to when they conduct the final rites with Mei and Da-zhi merely expected to keep up. A detached Mei explains that as the daughter she’s explicitly instructed when to cry and when not to, forced to run in and wail by the coffin on cue. Yi’s partner, Chin (Chang Shih-Ying), herself works as a professional mourner wailing on the behalf of others merely altering the identity of the deceased but in this case the siblings are alternately bored and run ragged, possibly too exhausted by the process of mourning to fully process their grief. 

Zhuang’s film exposes the labour involved as he closes in Da-zhi explaining that he has to sweep up the ashes from the burning of ghost money. He asks him how he feels about his father’s death which might in itself be a little insensitive especially while pointing a camera in his face and he snaps back that he doesn’t know. Mei meanwhile is repeatedly drawn back to memories of her father, picking out a picture of him singing karaoke for the altar only to be told off by the older relatives. Zhuang eventually photoshops it to replace the mic with flowers and the background with a more appropriate scene of mountains and rivers. She doesn’t tell her friends her father passed away until months later and still finds herself forgetting, brought to tears on accidentally reminding herself to pick up some “longevity” cigarettes for him on a trip back from abroad only to realise there’s no need anymore. “Please stow your emotions” she imagines hearing the captain say in her father’s voice as she strives to accommodate her grief. 

Filled with a series of humorous digressions from Yi’s love life and their late father’s ability to charm his nurses even at death’s door, the film paints a warm and nostalgic portrait of small-town life and the various rituals that go along with it, including a small tangent on political corruption as a host of politicians are obliged to attend the funeral, because of the aforementioned ill-defined familial relationships, and send elaborate gifts including a large tower of beer cans that later collapses and requires even more tiding up. Finally the siblings must burn their mourning clothes as if symbolically moving on from their seven says in “heaven” and returning to their everyday lives but discover perhaps that grief is an ongoing process the rituals of which may continue long after the funeral is finished.

Seven Days in Heaven is available to stream in the US Sept. 25 to Oct.1 as part of the 17th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema.

Trailer (English subtitles)

Bad Education (黑的教育, Kai Ko, 2022)

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According to a jaded policeman in Kai Ko’s directorial debut Bad Education (黑的教育, Hēi de Jiàoyù), only 10% of people are good and 10% bad with 80% somewhere in the middle depending on the circumstances. As another person puts, even bad people have principles and in an odd way it’s a sadistic gangster who becomes a moral authority teaching the trio at the film’s centre a few valuable lessons in just how far south something can go when you allow yourself to be swayed by peer pressure and adolescent bravado. 

Perhaps intended as a graduation prank, Chang (Berant Zhu) suggests he and his friends Han (Edison Song) and Wang (Kent Tsai) exchange otherwise unspeakable secrets to cement their ongoing friendship through the threat of blackmail and exposure. Chang tells a frankly disgusting story that he raped and impregnated a young woman with learning difficulties while Han claims that he bludgeoned a homeless man to death but no one noticed. The only one to be going on to university, Wang does not have any particularly dark secrets to share. All he can come up with is that he once read his father’s texts and found out he’s having an affair, while otherwise confessing to having stolen the answer sheet to a test. As expected, Chang and Han don’t like his answers and begin to threaten him, pushing Wang back towards the edge of the roof as if they meant to kill him so wouldn’t spill the beans. 

Chan and Han were of course bullshitting, they haven’t done anything of the sort, but they manage to persuade Wang that he’ll have to do something similar to complete the pact. They challenge him to throw paint at a gangster which turns out to be an incredibly bad mistake though to be fair to them, Chan and Han may not have expected Wang to actually do it. It’s only then that they start to realise they aren’t children any more. Actions will have consequences and even if, as Mr. Hsing (Leon Dai) the gangster boss later says, they haven’t done “anything wrong” they’ve gone about everything in the wrong way and will eventually have to pay. Chan looks up at him pleadingly and answers like a child that he’s sorry and won’t do it again, but Mr. Hsing points out that whether he does it again or not is of no interest to him. It’s not what this is about. 

What it’s about is perhaps a different kind of “graduation”, leaving the innocence and naivety of childhood behind for the cynicism of adulthood and the moral greyness of grownup society. Then again, they weren’t all that innocent to begin with that they could come up with heinous crimes to confess and imagine that their friendship would survive it. The policeman says that 80% of people could go either way in most situations, himself included it seems, painting a fairly bleak picture of the contemporary society. Chased through the city by Hsing’s foot soldiers, Chan and Wang end up stealing a taxi from a taxi driver who had just raped the young woman passed out drunk in his car though no one makes much of an effort to help her as each remains fixated on their personal goals such as escaping and fleeing the city. 

In the opening scenes, a lobster had been plucked from a tank and had its legs cut off in a moment of foreshadowing while customers in Mr Hsing’s seafood restaurant with greasy mouths suck on shrimp whose corpses they soon spit out and discard. Something quite similar happens to the boys as the cracks in their friendship are further exposed. Even back on the rooftop, they’d reflected on the class difference between them with Wang, whose father owns a factory he is expected to take over, the only one going to college, while Chan jokes about becoming his driver and Han remarks that he’d like to drive a Maserati (one stands across from him as he’s viciously beaten in his underwear by Hsing’s goons). 

Figuring out they have no underworld connections, Hsing asks for money and the boys immediately look to rich kid Wang only he refuses because it’s too embarrassing to ask his dad for that amount of cash. Engaged in some kind of sadistic power play, Hsing tries to get them to cut each other’s pinkies off with the guys each turning on and blaming each other. Chan too tries to argue that they came back to save Han so he owes them (only they didn’t), while later blaming Wang for going ahead with the dare rather than himself for setting up this stupid prank as a means of having something to remember in their old age. Later he admits his insecurity, uncertain of his own future and frightened that his friends will leave him behind but it’s already too late. Wang ironically fulfils the pact, his graduate rosette fluttering as he does so as if to remind us that he’s now “graduated” from childhood innocence, but ironically destroys rather than cements the boys’ friendship with one chaotic night of violence and terror. Incredibly dark with moments of bleak humour, Bad Education offers a lesson in retribution and the costs of peer pressure and bravado and leaves each of its heroes changed, if not slightly broken, by the realities of a duplicitous adulthood. 

Bad Education screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival. 

Teaser trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

No More Bets (孤注一掷, Shen Ao, 2023)

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That the two biggest hits at the Chinese box office in summer 2023 both had a strong anti-gambling message perhaps hints at a contemporary anxiety, though No More Bets (孤注一掷, gūzhùyīzhì) is clearly the more direct of the two even if it also shares with Lost in the Stars its echoing of a theme in contemporary mainstream cinema that Chinese citizens are safe nowhere other than China. Then again, that particular message maybe somewhat disingenuous seeing as the villains here are all themselves Chinese if operating abroad to try and evade the law. 

This ambitious programmer Pan (Lay Zhang) learns to his cost when he abruptly quits his job after being passed over for a promotion in favour of someone with an influential father and accepts a too good to be true offer from what he’s been led to believe is a gaming company in Singapore. Soon enough, however, he realises their brief stopover is actually their destination and he’s been trafficked to another South East Asian nation where he is forced to participate in online gambling scams. Pan is however a righteous young man and immediately takes a stand, explicitly telling his captors he won’t do their bidding though they viciously beat him. Eventually he teams up with the slightly less conflicted model Anna (Gina Jin Chen) who vaguely understood the job when she agreed to it but not that they’d confiscate her passport and she’d be unable to leave. 

Like Pan, Anna accepted the job while frustrated by the vagaries of her industry after being unfairly let go by her agency after her photo was used on a flyer advertising sex work without her (or their) consent. Like those who play the games, she was suckered in by the promise of easy money that could be earned quickly and didn’t really think about the implications of what she was doing. That the film positions the victim, Tian (Darren Wang), as an incredibly wealthy young man who had access to vast generational wealth avoids the implication that some are drawn into scams for the same reasons that Pan and Anna were in they feel a sense of impossibility in their lives because of societal unfairness and economic hopeless but nevertheless paints his gradual descent into madness and addiction as a personal failing born of his insatiable greed rather than a misfortune that might befall anyone with a smartphone. Even so, if a highly educated young man can be tricked by such an obvious scam it suggests that it really can happen to anyone. 

At least, the film seems to say that in any case it’s bad to gamble but you should definitely think twice about promises that sound too good to be true, especially if they involve offers of work abroad. A series of talking heads interviews (with blurred faces) from victims of trafficking at the film’s conclusion all advise viewers not to travel to other countries to work, while several remark on how relieved they felt to see Chinese police when they were eventually rescued. Uniformed police also give a press conference during the film insisting that they are doubling down on combatting fraud and other kinds of cybercrimes while Inspector Zhao (Yong Mei), whose speech bookends the film, struggles to get anything done because the crimes are taking place overseas and therefore outside of her jurisdiction. Then again, the entire operation is run by Chinese businessmen who try to engender a sense of loyalty and rebellion among the men whom they’ve essentially enslaved by making them think that they’re merely rebelling against an unfair society by taking the money of the “greedy” people who play their games and redistributing it to their own, downtrodden families. 

Pan is trying to do the right thing, but often does it in the wrong way actively putting others in danger while trying to find a way to blow the whistle on the whole operation in the hope of being rescued while even Inspector Zhao at times seems dismissive, failing to take the claims of Tian’s girlfriend that he’s being swindled out of his entire family fortune by online scammers seriously until it’s too late. Even so, Shen crafts an often tense tale of escape as Pan does his best to send out coded messages under the noses of his kidnappers while unwillingly participating in the fraud hoping that eventually someone will figure out what’s going on and put a stop the cruel cycle of misery once and for all. 

No More Bets opens in UK cinemas 8th September courtesy of CineAsia.

UK trailer (English subtitles)

Flaming Cloud (三贵情史, Liu Siyi, 2023)

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Regrets can turn into curses too, according to a melancholy middle-aged woman in Lin Siyi’s beautifully designed romantic fable, Flaming Cloud (三贵情史, Sānguì qíng shǐ) The English title refers to the deaths of gods and goddesses and a physical harbinger either of the joy of reunion or the sorrow of parting. Of course, in one way it’s all the same, every hello is also a goodbye and a curse can also be a blessing depending on how you look at it. 

As the narratorial voiceover explains, the heavens is where all of this starts as bored gods in a casino on a cloud place bets on the lives of mortals. A young woman approaches and places a wager on the existence of true love which is immediately countered by the bar’s musician. To carry out the wager, the gods decide to curse the then baby Sangui that anything he kisses will fall into a deep sleep until he kisses his one true love. 

A kind of reverse sleeping beauty, the film follows Sangui’s path through a fairytale world where he meets various others suffering in similar ways to himself but is otherwise regarded as an outcast because of unusual ability to put people to sleep. A young woman, Yuyu (Zhou Ye), who thinks he might be her prince, introduces him to a “witch” who promises to cure his curse if only he’ll treat her chronic insomnia in which he’s had not a drop of sleep in the last 12 years. What he discovers is that she is not a witch at all but the faded star, Yuexin (Yao Chen), who tells him that she cannot cure his curse for there is nothing really wrong with him and some might even see his ability as a gift, especially those like her who have trouble sleeping. 

Yuexin’s insomnia is born of past regret and the pain of lost love. She can’t sleep because she lacks the courage to face her past, while Sangui too is afraid unable to search for the girl he believes to be his one true love whom he met in childhood in case she has forgotten him or like everyone else regards him as a “freak”. Yuexin warns him that if he never gains the courage to look for Tingting (Zhou Yiran) he may regret it in time and that regret could become its own kind of curse. But in the fairytale society of White Stone he discovers only more prejudice and cruelty, stumbling on a hidden factory staffed by enslaved workers who describe themselves as being, like him, “freaks” unlikely to be missed by the world above. The villain is an exploitative factory owner whose business model is dependent on their forced labour though a mysterious ally has been helping them by smuggling medicine through the steampunk pipes that puncture their environment. They alone stand up to the factory owner, insisting that the workers are “no different” from themselves and defiantly resisting the authoritarian austerity of a wicked stepmother turned capitalist fat cat. 

But the film’s Chinese title reminds that this is a story of Sangui’s love and whether his curse can be lifted or not. Yuexin realises that the choice she made may have been mistaken, while the musician who bet against the existence of true love later admits he did so because he knows it’s real but the reality is painful for him or else he just wanted to see it proved and send a message to his own lost love that they would one day meet again. Even so, that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a happy ending. The course of true love is always bittersweet and whichever way you look at it destined to end in a farewell though that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth following and not doing so out of fear is as Yuexin discovered only to suffer from the curse of regret. Featuring exquisite production design from the opening animation to the whimsical fairytale town gleefully melding eras from Yuexin’s flapper-esque costuming to the 1950s aesthetic of the factory owner’s wife and the steampunk quality of factory itself, Lin Siyi’s charming romantic fable is as much about middle-aged regret for the forgotten dream of love as it is about finding the courage to seek it out no matter the risk. 

Flaming Cloud screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival. 

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Miss Shampoo (請問，還有哪裡需要加強, Giddens Ko, 2023)

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A ruthless gangster’s quest for vengeance is put on hold when he falls for a cutesy hairdresser who hides him from the bad guys who knifed his treacherous boss in Giddens Ko’s adaptation of his own short story Miss Shampoo (請問，還有哪裡需要加強, qǐngwèn, háiyǒu nǎlǐ xūyào jiāqiáng). Part gangland drama part zany Taiwanese rom-com, the film nevertheless hints at institutionalised corruption in local politics while simultaneously mocking the awkward positioning of the “gangster” in the contemporary imagination as both a romanticised outlaw and despised member of society. 

Bruiser Tai becomes the head of his gang when his boss, Hsing, is murdered by Thai assassins presumably hired by one of the other local bosses in a dispute over urban development contracts that may also threaten an upcoming election. Tai doesn’t seem to know a lot about that or how seriously he should take advice from one of the other bosses that he should look inside his own organisation when considering who might have wanted Hsing dead. In any case, at the present time all he can think about is innocent hairdresser, Fen (Vivian Sung), who hid him in the back of the salon when he was trying to escape the assassins. It’s not long before he’s deciding that he needs a haircut, as do several of his men who more or less take the salon over as the gangsters’ coiffeur of choice. 

Fen is not actually a fully trained hairdresser and had been mainly handling the shampoo which might explain some of her more avantgarde efforts even if she later seems to find a groove in giving the gangsters the kind of hairstyles they wanted but didn’t know how to ask for. The effect may be short lived leaving Tai with ridiculous blond dreadlocks for the rest of the film but perhaps nothing says love more than being willing to look like a complete idiot to avoid hurting your crush’s feelings. A baseball obsessive, Fen is herself somewhat on the margins and currently dating a graduate student who looks down on her and doesn’t take the relationship seriously. Even her mother tells her he’s too good for her, suggesting they should continue placating him because he’s “better” than they are while she remains unable to stand up for herself. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the family are later family acceptive of Tai’s attempts at courtship despite knowing that he’s a “gangster” with only the worry that he may turn into a “scary ex” if Fen eventually decides to break up with him. But the relationship does however place a strain on the gang with some members frustrated by Tai’s lovelorn indifference to the gangster code as he continues to neglect avenging the boss’ death in favour of pursuing a romance with Fen. While his friend flirts (almost literally) with betrayal in chasing a new cryptocurrency future with a similarly fed up underling from a rival gang, Tai starts to wonder if he’ll have to make a choice between his life an underworld high roller and his love for the civilian Fen while slowly coming to the conclusion that being the boss might not be all it’s cracked up to be. 

A recurrent baseball subplot hints at another kind of justice built on teamwork and mutual feeling that eventually comes to the rescue both romantically and physically as Tai deals with his gangster drama and Fen with her romantic doubt after realising that Tai is a gangster after all and underworld betting is destroying the game she loves so much, while otherwise playing into the message of new beginnings as Fen continues to support her longtime baseball idol as he prepares to transfer to a Japanese team at the comparatively late age of 30. Ko plays with meta humour in the final assurances that this is a New Year Movie (though it wasn’t) so must have a happy ending while otherwise indulging in zany gags like invisible guns as a repeated gimmick to get names out of people who didn’t want to give them, aside from all the ridiculous hairstyles Fen accidentally gives her customers while trying to capture their true essence. Nevertheless, the sleazy atmosphere and vulgarity often sit uncomfortably with the sweetness of the central love story in what is otherwise an ironic take on the quirky rom-com.

Miss Shampoo screened as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (Traditional Chinese / English subtitles)

Deep Sea (深海, Tian Xiaopeng, 2023) [Fantasia 2023]

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“For you who passed through the darkness” runs a dedicatory title card at the conclusion of Tian Xiaopeng’s stunning animated drama, Deep Sea (深海, Shēn Hǎi). Aimed squarely at younger audiences, the film is an exploration of depression and despair as the young heroine is plunged into a dark sea feeling that her life has no value but there encounters a fantastical world of colour and light while chasing the ghost of the mother who abandoned her.

As if to signify her loneliness, the film opens in a blizzard in which Shenxiu (Wang Tingwen) desperately searches for her mother only for her shadow to turn into a strange, many eyed monster. Back in the “real” world, she’s off on a family holiday with her father, his new wife, and their baby son, the family of three sitting in front while she remains behind on her own wearing the red hoodie that once belonged to her mother. About to get on a boat for a six-day cruise, she drafts a message to her mother about how excited she is to see the ocean but then scrolls back up and remembers all the times her mother didn’t reply and the times she did to tell her she’s busy and wishes Shenxiu wouldn’t contact her if it isn’t urgent. She deletes the message and rejoins her family but they’re so busy fussing over the baby that they don’t have time for her either and in fact seem to have forgotten that today is her birthday.

Venturing out on the deck in a storm, Shenxiu is sucked into a tornado in which she sees the outline of her mother and meets a strange sea creature, Hijinx, from a story her mother had told her believing that it has come to guide her to where her mother is living. Before too long she arrives at a bizarre floating restaurant where aquatic creatures go to eat run by “avant-garde” chef Nanhe (Su Xin). In some ways, Nanhe comes to represent her mother in that he first rejects her, insisting that she’s bad luck and kicking her out but later takes her back and tries to make her happy in an effort to stave off the “Red Phantom” that threatens to consume her, taking on the form of her mother’s red hoodie in which she attempts to bury herself as a symbol of her loneliness and despair. 

Beautifully animated, the world of the restaurant is a silkpunk paradise of chaotic action, part pirate ship and part fantastical submarine powered by walruses on stationery bicycles. Tian Xiaopeng makes fantastic use of the projector screen to illuminate Shenxiu’s fantasies, neatly including a cartoon within the cartoon in a more traditional 2D style while otherwise reflecting Nanhe’s broken dreams for a homeland he says he can never return to. Shenxiu too shifts between alternate “realities”, experiencing brief flashbacks to happy memories of her mother and others of less happy times as she’s sent for counselling by a school concerned she seems withdrawn only to be told the solution is to smile more so she’ll fit in better encouraging her to bury herself and her feelings under an affected facade of cheerfulness for the comfort of others.  

Nanhe’s final acceptance of her comes when he tells he that he hopes all her future smiles will be from the heart unlike the clown face he sometimes wears with its eerie, false grin intended to ward off other people’s discomfort but largely masking pain in himself. He also tells her that though the “real” world may seem grey and miserable in comparison to the dazzling colour of her dreams, there will bright moments waiting for her that no matter how small are worth living for. It might seem a heavy message to deliver to small children, but also one that some may sadly need to hear. Tian opts for a more realistic conclusion than many might expect in which Shenxiu but nevertheless allows her to punch through her loneliness and despair into a happier existence bonding with her stepmother and seemingly better integrated into her family no longer feeling excluded or alone. Absolutely breathtaking in its execution, Tian’s incredibly rich fantasy world is a riot of whimsy but also tempered by a deep empathy and compassion for anyone who’s battled their way through a dark sea. 

Deep Sea screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)