O Lago do Ganso Selvagem

Diao Yinan 's third feature-length feature film presents a unique and unprecedented temperament in the previous Chinese-language movies. Although this style is not original in film history, as a purely Chinese-language movie, it may be historically Still the first time.

Breaking away from the context of traditional Chinese art films, this film presents a complex look and feel, on the one hand, it is addictive and shocking to the film's audio-visual, on the other hand, because of looking at those screen faces that we are familiar with , The weirdness of performing with a rare performance rhythm.

"Southern Station Party" set the story background in Wuhan. In this city known as one of the "Four Hot Stoves", the car thief Zhou Zenong played by Hu Ge accidentally shot a policeman in the fire of an opponent gang. The police issued a price tag of 300,000 yuan for Zhou Zenong. Zhou Zenong, who became a fugitive, fled in the wild goose lake in Wuhan's "outside of law", but accidentally met Liu Aiai (Guilin Magnesium), an acquaintance who didn't know her in the process. ...



85% of the "Southern Station Party" is a night show, like the night show 25 minutes before the start of the movie. But the night scenes in the film are not a single rendering of a dark atmosphere, and the night under the lens of Diao Yinan is layered. This is due to the ingenious use of neon lights, shadows and sounds.

The film is full of super bright neon elements, whether it is a neon sign, an electric car neon sign, a square dance shoe neon sign, or a toy neon sign ... their dazzling light and shabby gloomy environment seem to be incompatible, so their red It is "disastrous red" and yellow is "dim yellow"; under the contrast of the dark night, they release a sense of fantasy and illusion of stealing in the end of the world.

When I saw Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love"(2000) with Maggie Cheung - I knew we were watching a completely new cinema that would one day self-realise into epic cinema ~ epic Chinese cinema. And I have now seen that realisation in The Wild Goose Lake. This film is like a cross between Godard's Breathless and de Sica's Bicycle Thieves - and is so satisfying you could watch it upside down. It is possibly the grittiest film I have ever seen, with the urgency and cinematic style of French cinema of the 1960s - where the possibilities are endless and every new film in this genre will be waited for in anticipation.

Rain falls hard over a remote area where a mobster-on-the-run awaits instructions from a mysterious woman; the camera captures the dazzling, stylish and inventive visions of director Diao Yinan as he opens this action-packed thriller demonstrating how poetically he conceives a scene. Bleeding, hurt and wanted, Zenong has wrongly shot a cop, while on a competition with other gangster families, in order to claim control over the drug/theft most profitable streets. Aiai is a hustler and "bath lover"- a Chinese modern version of prostitution- who is working on both sides, struggling to survive as a mediatior on the bloodshed war between the gangsters' families and the police seeking to avenge their colleague. As they wait for their next move, they both narrate in flashbacks the circumnstances prior, when the street war sparkled a revolution on the local criminal business. An electrifying, fast-paced, ultra violent and seductive neo-noir thriller, Yinan obviously understands of visual techniques, conceiving each frame as a piece of art in movement, with lyrical, glamorous observations on the details, on the silent moments embracing the unexpected, the subtle eroticism, the rain, the neon lights on the roads, but most impressively how he extracts poetry from the bloody confrontations and its uncontrollable shootings. Addressing male rivalry and dominance, pride and greed, it's a riveting, visually-arresting and superbly crafted mobster-on-bikes tale.

I don't rate films 10 very often, you can check my rating history and see for yourselves. this one is a rare combination of technical mastery, as manifest in superb chinematography and lighting work, great editing, amazing acting, that is mainly the two leads who really shine all the way through, Ge Hu as the male lead and Lun-Mei Kwei who in my humble opinion has the most expressive poker face I've ever seen. That is as long as she carries her poker face, when the time comes you'll find she does have more than one facial expression.

On top of all that, we get a tight story of a Greek tragedy proportions set in modern china, depicting a dark and un forgiving world that borrows a lot from the classics of Melville. If you remember Melville's attitude to the famous "honor among thieves" you'll know what to expect from this movie too. But do come with an open mind - you'll be blown away.

Hu Ge plays Zhou Zenong, an ex-con and a leader of a minor crime family mostly specializing in motorcycle thefts. Unfortunately, a quarrel with another crime family has him accidentally shoot a police officer, mistaking the man for one of his enemies. Now he's on the run and ends up near Wild Goose Lake, a lake resort known for its prostitutes. You can definitely disappear in a place like that. But does he manage to pull it off?

The story revolves around Zhou and Liu Aiai (Gwei Lun-mei), one of the local prostitutes, whose pimp is a known associate of Zhou's. Liu is made to contact Zhou because she's not immediately known to the police, and the rest evolves from that.

If I had to describe the style of the film, I'd say it's a weird mixture of John Woo and Kim Ki-duk. With more emphasis on Kim. It definitely wants to be a crime thriller, but it's very slow and thoughtful about it. The film has this serenity to it. People are in a rush, it's a tense situation, but there are still moments just to have a conversation or to get lost in your thoughts. Have a moment of introspection.

Until the film decides it's time for the final action scene, when all bets are suddenly off. It's a jarring mixture to say the least, but I can't say I minded it.

If I had to name one flaw, I'd say the plot is a touch meandering. The slow style works surprisingly well, but whenever the story needs to move forward, it takes a while to do so and jumps through a few hoops too many.

Still, if you're looking for a Chinese crime drama, you could do a lot worse.