Directed by Zhang Lu | 144 mins | 2023
Rich in gently rhyming motifs, Zhang Lu’s 2023 Berlinale competition offering orbits a food and restaurant critic in Beijing. Middle-aged and listless in the aftermath of a divorce, Gu Wentong finds himself contemplating a reunion with the father he hasn’t seen since he was five, when the elder man was forced out of the family by a shameful incident. Stoking Gu’s curiosity is a young photographer colleague whose attentions teeter on the cusp of romance.