I was born and lived in the northeastern region in China for over 20 years. There are only few Chinese movies talking about northeastern region seriously, most of them just take it as a funny characteristic and film it at a shallow level. The scenes and structure in this movie is rather beautiful while realistic. I could see through the movie that the director is treating his work seriously (which is already rare to see in today's theatrical film in Mainland China) and he has deep love for his hometown. The only problem from my view is the casting, the main actor and actress somehow don't seem to fit in with this story and there was no chemistry between them (they are both great actor/actress tho). Zhang Yu just has the face that will make you think he's from southwest since the first glance (at least for me, if you're not from China and can't feel the difference then this may not be a problem). If you liked this movie you may also want to see The Reunions (2020), a documentary from a northeastern comedy director Dong Chengpeng.
