Bao lie wu sheng

Metaphors for different social strata are in place. The whole movie has a good control over suspense. The script is really good. The mystery is pulled away layer by layer until the last moment. The shortcomings are also obvious, too many indifferent lenses weaken the main line; the lawyer's performance is too superficial, 80% of the scenes are wooden face.

For the last couple of months, I have been thrilled and admire how powerful the silence (usage of less dialogues) and sounds can be in today's films. They say that - Actions Speak Louder Than Words. For example, "the Tribe" Ukrainian powerful drama about deaf teenagers, or "All is Lost" intense 105minutes by Robert Redford who tries to stay alive. Or even recent hit "a quiet place" where a family forced to communicate through sign language in order to survive. In all these films audience could feel the dialogues by beautiful performances by main characters. The Chinese "Wrath of Silence" had similar effect on me.

To be honest I was surprisingly interested in the Chinese "Wrath of Silence", for me watching foreign films sometimes can be challenging, following the film and subtitles sometimes can be annoying. but after watching the half of the Xin Yukun's "Wrath of Silence" I found myself locked in it.

The "Wrath of Silence" is very well-executed thriller that gets more interesting as it goes. As an audience we all can feel for the main protagonist who is looking for his son. This unfortunate and hopeless quest is supported by powerful moments, bone-crunching action and dark humor. "Wrath of Silence" also have great storytelling, sound effects and beautifully crafted cinematography. Each shot worth thinking and analyzing twice.

The only flaws for me was the pace of the first half. I believe it was too slow and very long, and ending could be a little better, more artistic and more meaningful rather than just having kid drawing what happened. I wish we could see him drawing before a little by little and trying to tell what happened instead he was just creepy wearing the mask.

There are just too many plot holes, and the screenplay simply lacks any sense of credibility. The first half of the film is unbearably slow and long. The production design is ridiculous. Clearly, the writer-director does not know how to make a decent thriller.

Hurray, the first good film of this year's festival! A genuinely unusual take on that old chestnut, the 'psycho looking for his missing kid' flick, but used to interrogate the iniquities of contemporary Chinese society (without anyone involved in the production gettinh killed), as a mute miner – left behind by the rapid pace of progress – engages in a bleak, apparently hopeless quest that's punctuated by moments of dark comedy and bone-crunching action (there's a lot of him just kicking people really hard).

The final shot could have used a bit of work, but the ending is otherwise superb, a fitting capper to a film with a few rough edges (cartoonish villainy, an opening that's more confusing than intriguing, a little mid-section bagginess) but interesting ideas, superb imagery – that in-camera shot of the desert giving way to the city! – and the best exhausted fight scene in aeons. Clever title too.

It's basically Kurosawa's High and Low, but for China in 2017. Having said that, and as the director acknowledged, there are no state officials involved in wrongdoing: the corruption shown is all in the private sector, even if it's high-ranking lawyers who operate within the public realm and increasingly dominate Chinese society.

... and curiously, like my previous film in the festival, Todd Haynes' risible Wonderstruck, it hinges on a mute person and a taxidermical diorama. This one's good, though.

Cinematography was outstanding, acting on point, but the writing was terrible. I like the message this film was telling, but there were too many long, dragged out and unnecessary scenes. What was even the need for the father to play a mute? The butcher losing an eye? That entire cave scene lacked any reasoning or logic. Etc. There were too many convoluted plot and technical issues This film needed much cutting/trimming and editing. All the fluff and slow pacing, made the 120 min runtime feel like over 3 hours. The fight choreography was also underwhelming and unrealistic. Maybe some martial arts experience for the father may have made it somewhat realistic, as he showed zero fighting skills, especially against an entire office. It's a 5/10 from me