Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
There are 247 words in this article, and it will probably take you less than 2 minutes to read it.
This article was published 2025-12-12 00:00:00 -0500, which makes this post and me old when I published it.
It took an estimated to develop this article from conception to publishing.
first act:
an impressionistic musico-visual human-centered collage of china
it creates an interesting dynamic of not being totally sure what’s documentary versus what’s not
there are some shots of scenery and objects but for the most part the center of attention is on people, usually crowds of them
end of first act through third act:
the plot is slow to emerge it slows reveals itself and blossoms like a flower
a lot of scrapped footage from ash is purest white
the romance was nice in the third act but i did not really care for it in the beginning so wasn’t really sure what she was nostalgic for
overall:
it isn’t disjointed per se but doesn’t feel continuous (bc it isn’t!) i don’t think he transcends the material but is able to create something engaging from scraps
the editing and cinematography were beautiful
a lot of double exposure edits
great music across genres
humanizes china greatly
a tough film to rate bc i was probably not the intended audience as someone who had never seen any of his other work — i was able to engage with it only abstractly
it felt like there were at least two films in here in the three acts and i felt like the first act was my fav, but that’s not to say that the other acts didn’t have redeeming qualities
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