By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Ziyang Zhou
Starring: Tumen | Xuan Huang | Zishan Yang
Country: china
Year: 2021
Running time: 108
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986342/reference
Michael says: “Easy money and investments gone wrong power this downward spiral of a film about Yang Hua, a young man flexing his entrepreneurial spirit to make some big money. His first plan, a dinosaur park on the outskirts of the city of Wuhai, has failed, and instead Yang is convinced to loan the money he was to have invested in it to a friend, whose idea is a health & wellness Yurt resort in the desert. The trouble is, the folks who invested in Yang’s original idea are eager to collect their debts, but Yang’s friend doesn’t seem to be in all that much of a hurry to pay him back. To make some quick cash in order to get his lenders off his back, Yang is hooked up with an easy mark — a young woman who he tries to blackmail with pictures of her that she doesn’t want released publicly. This is another in a string of bad decisions Yang makes, and its ends horribly. Meanwhile, Yang’s marriage is under a strain. His wife Miao finds out she is pregnant, but keeps that information from Yang, possibly because the father could be an old flame who keeps messaging her and professing his love for her. The centerpiece of the film is an explosive argument the two have that seemingly irrevocably destroy the relationship. As Yang’s life continues to unravel, he resorts to desperate measure to recoup his money, and when that fails spectacularly, he makes one more attempt to reconcile with his wife. Unfortunately, with both of their volatile personalities on the razor’s edge, that ends disastrously as well. In the end, what could have been a powerful tragic drama, ends up being a frustrating experience as the characters just make bad decision after bad decision. And despite some capable performances, the script doesn’t leave much room for us to connect with the characters.
“The film is shot beautifully with the city in stark contrast to the desert, with the abandoned dinosaurs silhouetted by the sunset, or the yurts films from above as exotic shapes against the end. Miao is also a yoga instructor, involved in a unique practice that is part aerialist, part yoga, utilizing suspended swatch of fabric to assist with some unique yet beautiful poses. WU HAI held my interest, and overall it was a fairly enjoyable film, but it could have been considerably better. 3 cats
“Screened at Tribeca Festival 2021″