Jia nian hua

Information is money. Mia, a struggling teenage drifter in a seashore resort town, happens upon a wealth of this. Late one night and alone at a hotel reception desk she witnesses a serious crime. Reporting the crime would highlight Mia's illegal worker status and cause big trouble for her, yet remaining silent is not a good option either. It is part of Mia's nature to help others, even when it means she takes the blame. When Mia makes up her mind to help the crime victims and perhaps help herself too by selling the information, a deeper danger emerges. It comes in the form of a car following Mia with headlights out in the night. Mia may be in over her head in the underworld of the town.

This enthralling and unique thriller is delightfully complex and deep. In a slow paced, methodical and character driven manner, the film takes you to unexpected places in the underworld of the town where corruption seems to surmount any obstacle. The film involves complicated characters who make interesting and unpredictable choices. It is refreshing that many of these characters are women. There are many wonderful dimensions to the film. I really enjoyed the soothing sounds of ocean waves, crickets and frogs at night. The ending is especially satisfying. Vivian Qu is the writer as well as the director. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival.

When we talk about great female directors, we have to mention Kathryn Bigelow, who is known for her documentary-style camerawork and for her creation of an intense atmosphere. Vivian Qu, the director of this brilliant thriller "Angels Wear White", is just the Chinese counterpart of Kathryn Bigelow.

The scenes are realistically shot and depicted. The editing is amazing, the pace is comfortable, and the audiences always wonder what would happen next. Even in the last scene, people still wonder where Mia (Vichy Chen) is heading. The music score is light but effective.

Vivian Qu is even better than Kathryn Bigelow in terms of depth and complexity of the film. The thriller exposes the dark side of the Chinese society, where money and power control everything.

To summarize, "Angels Wear White" is the best Chinese-language thriller of all time.

What kind of vision does a female director bring to a movie? I don't know if Vivian Qu would oppose to being specifically called a "female" director, but I definitely thought that her movie centers the perspective of its female characters in ways few other movies - in the West included - do. The movie shows the various ways in which women are silenced, objectified, and abused at a personal and systemic level. It always does so in a subdued manner, which is respectful to its cast but still conveys a strong message. Some quieter scenes put forward powerful symbols (a marginalized character is asked twice to move out of a photographer's angle, happy couples taking wedding pictures on the beach, the Marilyn Monroe statue). An intelligent, truly feminist work.

China needs such films to break away from the noise of capital and tell a good story quietly. The portrayal of the three generations of old, middle-aged and young women is realistic and makes the plot very natural. Only two points must be deducted at the end. The turning point is too stiff. Another point was deducted because of the senseless lenses of literary and artistic films.

This film is about the sexual assault of two preteen girls and the young girl who is the only witness.

This is a look at how one of the preteen girls is treated by family, law enforcement and her legal representation. It is emotionally impactful and I found myself really feeling for this child. Her situation is just sad and her mental state is one of fear, shame and isolation. The situation for the witness is self-serving and I was initially appalled by the unsympathetic emotion of her actions.

This film is well acted and filmed. This was a really slow paced film. I had a few problems with the story and the way it ended. I didn't feel there was enough detail to really make the story strong and I was really missing that. The ending just left me with so many unanswered questions that after building a connection with these girls, I felt let down by not knowing the rest of the story.

My final opinion is that while I liked it, this was a film that could've been so much more than it was.