Lighting Up the Stars

"Lighting up the stars" is a fairy tale for grown-ups. I have a sleep disorder and most nights I struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep. The healing effect of the movie is so powerful that I slept over 10 hours on the day I watched it. The message I got from the movie is that even if you have completely ruined your life, there are still ways you can fix it.

Great movie, heart felt and touching. Fast paced with hilarious moments that came naturally. Light hearted story telling but focusing on loss, coping, love and family. Amazing actors. Yilong Zhu pulled off Mo with an awards worthy performance. He changed so much, basically a different person. Very convincing as a rough working class guy at the lowest point of his life. Enyou Yang at her young age played amazingly well. Definitely recommend!

It is exciting to see that with Chinese cinema, besides the studio-assembled big-ticket movies, there's also the flourishing indie film movement which keeps throwing up some delightfully refreshing movies.

There is a reason why this small indie movie became a huge commercial success - it doesn't exploit its characters for comedy or life lessons; it simply embraces the main characters and lets them be themselves.

This is also a small movie with a gigantic performance by Mr. Zhu Yi Long. Zhu has ventured far beyond mere surface impersonation, although that is amazing enough, and fully transforms to his character - a funeral worker who just got released from prison. He layers his performance with snippets of individuality. Zhu's work here stands as one of the best performances of 2022.

A monstrous performance from an unlikely actor, Zhu Yilong who in my knowledge was always seen as a fair faced boy band sort of actor. A tear jerker with just the right amount of punch is often a staple of movies of this sort, but the movie is definitely more than that. Like the title in Chinese suggest, significant events in a lifetime, the movie is able to humanize a lot of these moments into a single storyline, and somehow combining everything to make it feel organic. Marriage, death, parenthood are all themes of this little story about a funeral director whose character development and growth seems both organic and significant.

I wish I was gifted with the ability of writing so I could give full justice to this movie in my review.

Funeral themes are not something I like to think of so I was curious about the Director's approach, specially in China, a country with so much history and traditions. I was happy to find that it was a very human and down to earth tale Director is telling and full of heart.

The relationship between Sange, an ex convict and a homeless little girl feels very organic, the chemistry between them is palpable. The way he becomes a better person after knowing Xiao Wen is a treat to watch.

The relationship between Sange and his father also feels real, showing the lack of communication as the usual problem between fathers and sons.

The setting in Wuhan a city full of life, the dialect, the way the movie is filmed, the acting in general, everything adds to the movie.

An special shout to Zhu Yi Long, the way he transformed into Sange leaves me in awe! No wonder even Chinese audience didn't recognize the actor.

So if you have the time to watch this movie please do it! I'm sure you won't regret it!