Only the River Flows

Reviews from the premiere was exciting so glad I got the replay ticket on 22 May at the Cannes festival. No spoilers.

Actor Zhu Yilong was fantastic in portraiting the character Ma Zhe and gave some very powerful and mesmerizing scenes. One can feel the emotional turmoil of Ma Zhe as the storyline unfold. An amazing young and gifted actor. I look forward in checking out his other movies.

The cinematography was fabulous. Many great scenes composition and the final grading set a good tone on the mood.

The bgm blended well and compliment the movie story development.

Only the River Flows is a well made movie taking a deep dive into human nature and self reflection.

Lens: 16mm film movies are really not easy It has a very cinematic texture, composition, colors, perfect camera language, and metaphorical expression art, which perfectly fits this somewhat bizarre and absurd story. There are no unnecessary narrative techniques at all. Excellent artistry, the atmosphere brought by the screen is excellent!

Music: This movie doesn't have a lot of music, but it's all perfectly chosen. And most importantly, when you finish watching the music in the movie and hear it again, a very strange feeling arises, as if the story of Ma Zhe and his is floating in your mind again, bringing you back to the story of the movie like a movie. Many of the things conveyed by the camera seem to be experienced in an instant.

Ever since the launch of the trailer, it has been a movie that I've been looking forward to and indeed it's worth the 101 mins in the cinema!

Nothing bad and you will definitely be glued to it. It is by far one of the best movie ever! On this note, I would like to specially highlight actor Zhu Yilong who played as Ma Zhe in the movie. Who would have thought that he could be so rugged and different from his usual self that always appears on screen.

Kudos to the team for making such a wonderful movie! It's definitely a MUST to watch!

I watched the red carpet live broadcast of the Cannes International Film Festival on May 20th. Zhu Yilong's appearance on the red carpet at the Cannes International Film Festival is completely different from what he saw in the movie!

Director Wei Shujun is one of the most anticipated Chinese directors at Cannes every year, because he really never disappoints. From his witty and humorous film "Striding into the Wind" which was shortlisted for the Director's Fortnight two years ago and received rave reviews at Cannes, this time he brought a different style of black film to the "A Certain Regard" section, which was like a shot in the arm, awakening the tired international critics. The film successfully adapted the work of teacher Yu Hua and had a strong Wei-style personal style, highly restoring the sense of the 90s in China, with a bleak realistic theme supplemented by magical dream segments, and sudden absurd scenes that even made the audience scream in surprise. Some of the ending segments seemed like clues deliberately left by the director, like the godly drama "The Long Season", which made me want to watch it again after seeing it. Ting shuo kan guo cai neng ping fen wo mei kan guo shi yi shi.

The movie is actually based on a novel by Yu Hua... The plots and setting of this movie makes audience unable to predict the end... The absurdity will make looking forward to the end of the movie... It's a noir movie... Mind blowing and realism... I believe it took years before Wei Shujun could adapt this to a movie... My friend that attended the screening at Cannes told me how absurd it was and I should see it so... Seeing this, it is above my expectations because I actually don't really like Chinese movies, I base on Korean but seeing this, I look forward to see more of this nature of movies.. Nice Performance from Yilong Zhu and Maoyan Chloe.. it's actually worth given it a try👍