NAN FANG CHE ZHAN DE JU HUI / THE WILD GOOSE LAKE
DIAO Yinan — CHINA — 113 minutes
IN A NUTSHELL
In this Noir crime drama, Hu Ge plays Zhou Zenong, a mobster who is on the run after killing some police officers. His path crosses with the beautiful Liu Aiai (Gwei Lun-Mei), a sex worker who has been tasked to make contact with Zhou by the gangsters who are hellbent on finding him. Meanwhile the authorities are keen to track down his ex-wife (Regina Wan) and child in order to find Zhou. It’s not about if Zhou will be found, but when. (words by Bianca Garner)
CRITICAL RESPONSE
“But beyond its archetypal scenario, which can be hard to follow in spots, especially during the film’s layered first hour, Diao paints a greater, even darker portrait of contemporary China as a vast land of exploitation and criminality — from the prostitutes eking out a living on the lakeshore to the bands of thieves taking each other out for territory to the innocent victims who get caught up in the crossfire.” — Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
“Most of The Wild Goose Lake takes place at night in the murky light of alleys and dimly lit passageways. With the police not far behind Zhou, the film becomes an endless and convoluted chase, from room to room, and in and out of anonymous maze-like streets. Diao is capable of conjuring up bristling tension and suspense with a shot of two people slurping noodles, so it is all the more a mystery that “The Wild Goose Lake” has atmosphere to spare but so little narrative drive.” — Barbara Scharres, RogerEbert.com
“Though the seamy locales give an almost palpable sense of life on the margins of solvency, legality and morality in modern China, it would be overstating to claim any great thematic weight here, and this will perhaps disappoint fans of Diao’s earlier, stranger, more hybrid work. In the moment, however, it is exhilarating to witness this symphonic choreography that seems less like it was mapped onto its locations, and more like it came from within. It may refer inescapably to genre classics from elsewhere, but The Wild Goose Lake is like an organic feature of the Chinese cinematic landscape, as though it pooled onto the screen in all its oily, murky glory, having welled up from deep inside the ground. Suddenly, China feels like the noirest place on Earth.” — Jessica Kiang, Variety
PRIZE PROSPECTS
It’s twelve years since Chinese director, Yi’nan Diao, came to Cannes with Night Train, competing in the Un Certain Regard section. Now he is back, and hopefully not forgotten, with a color-filled crime noir. Certainly now, Diao was a winner in Berlin with Black Coal, Thin Ice, though The Wild Goose Lake has not started as many fires.
Once again, it is the cinematographer, Dong Jinsong, grabbing the lion’s share of the praise, for a film which falls under that illusive style-over-substance label. The buzz around the festival is much stronger in others areas. This one, as good as it might be, is likely to get lost among the crowd in competition this year. (words by Robin Write)
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