Dong bei hu

I was born and lived in the northeastern region in China for over 20 years. There are only few Chinese movies talking about northeastern region seriously, most of them just take it as a funny characteristic and film it at a shallow level. The scenes and structure in this movie is rather beautiful while realistic. I could see through the movie that the director is treating his work seriously (which is already rare to see in today's theatrical film in Mainland China) and he has deep love for his hometown. The only problem from my view is the casting, the main actor and actress somehow don't seem to fit in with this story and there was no chemistry between them (they are both great actor/actress tho). Zhang Yu just has the face that will make you think he's from southwest since the first glance (at least for me, if you're not from China and can't feel the difference then this may not be a problem). If you liked this movie you may also want to see The Reunions (2020), a documentary from a northeastern comedy director Dong Chengpeng.

I've been living in China for more than 5 years and I've visited Dongbei region. The movie represents in a quite realistic way many common social problems of the region. I appreciate the lack of empty dialogues and propaganda ( common elements in nowadays Chinese cinema) and how the director avoid censorship in a smart way, even questioning the social control system that we have here.

I read a comment here saying that "it's a Chinese version of another Western movie". I do believe that the habit of always trying to refer to a movie from a foreign culture by a famous element of your own culture is a mistake and empty the real message of the artistic piece. The movie is more inserted in the line of Asian aesthetics than any Western line.

The movie could be better, specially in details. There is a closure of one of the characters a bit forced and the excessive use of music sometimes destroys beautiful moments of silence.

Overall, is a good movie, and if you want to watch it, keep in mind that the actions of the plot is based on things that are actually happening in Manchuria.

Slow-paced literary and artistic films, like the Northeast Sisters Edition of Elephants? I like the last line very much. Surve today, tomorrow will be a very interesting day. The whole Greater Northeast is probably very similar to the Northeast? Btw There is only Northeast China left in such absurd drama, right? Well... Slowly feel... I really don't understand much.