Only the River Flows
Asian Cinema
•
1h 41m
Directed by Wei Shujun | 102 mins | 2023
After a woman’s body is discovered on a river bank in rural southern China, police investigator Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) finds that it’s only the first layer of a deepening mystery, bound up in the hidden life of the nearby community. Based on Yu Hua’s short novel "Mistakes by the River", Wei’s bleakly atmospheric neo-noir is laced with gallows humor and touches of the surreal, its grungy 16mm photography a hand-in-glove fit for the ’90s setting.
Up Next in Asian Cinema
-
Pushing Hands
Directed by Ang Lee | 105 mins | 1991
Tensions brew and language becomes a barrier when widowed tai chi master Mr. Chu (Lung Sihung) swaps Beijing for a new life in New York City, where he joins the household of his Americanized son and white daughter-in-law. Ang Lee’s directorial debut evidence... -
Peppermint Candy
Directed by Lee Chang-dong | 130 mins | 1999
Opening on a shocking scene of implied suicide, Lee’s sophomore feature proceeds to move backward in time, its reverse chronology following its protagonist’s unhappiness to its source, following him from the end of the ’70s to the close of the ’90s—yea... -
Oasis
Directed by Lee Chang-dong | 133 mins | 2002
Jong-du (Sul Kyung-gu), just out of prison, very little reformed, and shunned by his family, finds an unlikely soulmate in the person of Gong-ju (Moon So-ri), a woman with severe cerebral palsy—and the daughter of the victim of the hit-and-run for whic...
