Only the River Flows

This is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated films of the year!

I have been following this film since the trailer and it is truly worth the ticket price and the time you pay.

Shujun Wei has made a brave and successful attempt. The film combines absurdity and reality in a perfect way to show the kind of life that was lived in the 90s.

Yilong Zhu's performance is amazing! I was introduced to this actor from China through this film and his handling of the role is vivid and eye-catching. He perfectly brings out the obsession and madness of a middle-aged cop.

In my opinion, this is absolutely excellent work and I look forward to their future works.

"Ma Zhe" (Zhu Yilong) engenders an almost adulatory degree of support from his team as he leads them on an investigation following the discovery of the body of the goose-rearing "Granny Four" on a remote riverside. Suspicion quickly falls on her adopted friend known simply as the "madman", but the detective is not so convinced that things are that straightforward. His ensuing task isn't helped by pressure from his ping-pong playing boss to conclude quickly and by the fact that he and his wife are expecting a baby - and that procedure is not going to be as simple as they might like. With the rain pretty much relentless throughout, he encounters some quirky local characters who seem to muddy the waters rather than offer him clarity. Clarity? Well that's an element to this story that is a bit too sparing at times. "Ma Zhe" finds his troubles gradually getting the better of him - yes, there are more bodies - and soon his own grasp on reality becomes distinctly compromised. Can he keep it together long enough to solve the crime? The film starts with the usual affirmation of the communist values of team play before entering the realms of predictable cop drama tempered with a bit of undercooked psycho-babble that Zhu Yilong tries to hard hold together. By the denouement, though, I felt way too much of the plot was contrived to try to tap into the psyche - of him and us - and it didn't really work. That said, he does well here and we do get quite a tense sense of his gradually becoming overwhelmed by the scenarios that test his usually linear style of working, thinking and living. Sadly, aside from "Ma Zhe", the characters are barely developed and director Wei Shujun seems more interested in focussing on an admittedly gritty and authentic looking peek at 1990s rural China, whilst rather abandoning the detail and characterisation of story to the sidelines as the dream sequences blur more and more the line between reality and fantasy. It does move along well enough, but I found it a bit of a meringue of a film - not much when you get into it.

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👍

Only the River Flows followed police investigator Ma Zhe (Zhu, Yilong Yilong Zhu), in the 90s China, trying to solve a murder case, with an "obvious" yet not so convincing suspect, the victim's adopted son, a man with mental illness. The movie developed into a psychological journey that was deeply intense and hard to resist. Intermingled with Ma Zhe's own life struggles, the psychological journey was painted with layers of unbelievable hues and shades, in contrast to the movie's desaturated color theme and tone. Are you saying it takes a crazy man to get a crazy man, literally?

As a neo-film nior, the movie shared many aspects of this genre. It also has absurdism and realism contrasting and complementing each other, just like the seemingly muted everyday life in the 90s which was actually during the turmoil of some of the biggest changes of China.

Bravo to Wei, Shujun Wei Shujun's cinema work, to the accuracy of a small town in 90s China, and to Zhu, Yilong Yilong Zhu's vivid portraying of a middle aged policeman dealing with madness from every aspects of his life.

In my humble opinion, a very special movie and a must-see.

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.