Wild Goose Lake (2019)
Review of Wild Goose Lake / 南方车站的聚会 (2019), directed by Diao Yinan
This movie has been on my to-watch list for awhile now. Set in Wuhan, China, literally right before the pandemic hit China and the world, I was drawn in specifically by the fact that the trailer features all of these gorgeous coloring scattered throughout the film, as well as the fact that the official genre this movie falls under is neo-noir crime thriller.
With good coloring and falling under that genre, you’re going to catch my interest pretty quickly. The fact that it’s also set in China also got me interested, because the crime films I’d seen out of China were decent but not great. And so I wanted to see if this lived up to the legacy of mediocre.
Boy, does this film technically fit the theme of noir and neo-noir perfectly. It’s moody, often set in the shadowy corners of Wuhan’s nightlife, and we get a lot of gang action. While it’s not straying too far from traditional characteristics of what is and isn’t considered noir, it still places itself in a very contemporary setting, one in which the viewers can relate to versus the 1940s noir they’re probably used to.
Content
We start the movie with our protagonist, a gang leader whose gotten himself and his buddies in a bunch of rough scuffles. What’s unique about this situation, one in which we begin with, is that he’s accidentally killed a cop.
One of his subordinates wanted revenge against a rival gang, and so they plotted out a trap, one in which the subordinate ends up dead and our main character, Zhou Zenong, is shot and fleeing when he mistakenly kills the cop. This then starts a police-led manhunt of Zhou, one in which a lot of yuan/money is offered for him whether he is dead or alive at the time of being turned in.
The main chunk of the present is told when Zhou meets up with an associate of his, a prostitute named Liu Aiai. Outside of the present moment where they’re interacting while meeting at the train station, then as they move about, the story is juxtaposed with flashbacks to show what exactly happened for him to get to this point.
Liu is our femme fatale; Zhou is expecting to meet up with his wife, but then Liu shows up instead. And if there’s one thing you should know about femme fatales in noir, it should be that they’re not the most trustworthy women. They are often present to destroy something.
What appeals to me specifically about this film is about the use of setting, coloring, and landscape in order to convey a tone and meaning to the film. This isn’t Beijing or Shanghai, the China of the dramas that you may watch, or the ancient cities that you may have read about in like middle school.
This is the China where the average folk live, the backstreets of Wuhan where there is crime and murder, the China that exists under the cloak of the night.
Even the actors don’t speak in standard Beijing dialect; instead, they speak in the thick Wuhan dialect, one in which native speakers may not even understand. With neon lights, a dark lake that seems ever-present to drown in, and the dimly lit fight scenes, this is a movie that is a visual treat.
Another thing that I found to be of great interest while reviewing the film to write this, going back to certain scenes to savor what was said and done, is that while this is such a tense moment, one in which a manhunt is going on, it seems so slow and languid, like the flow of water through a stream.
Zhou can be busted any minute now, but he has time to recount all of this to Liu, then even goes to a noodle shop with her. That’s insane; I’d imagine if I were in the same situation, I’d be running like a bat out of hell.
Overall Thoughts
I can see why some people may not like this film as much as I did. The plot line isn’t very unique in a way that stands out from other gangster films, and if you’re not into the composition of a film, you’re not going to care about the shots or the stylistic elements.
It’s a very simple story, really, and you can kind of predict easily on how it’s going to end. It can also become tough to understand who is who and what is what when it comes to the world of crime and the cops, but I didn’t mind that as much. So my rating comes more from the angle of execution rather than something that I’d watch for literary merit in regards to story.
