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Only the River Flows

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Only the River Flows

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Summary

In 1990s rural China, the police investigate a series of murders in a riverside town. Chinese thriller with subtitles.

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IMDB

Review

A star rating of 4 out of 5.

Dave Golder

Opening with an Albert Camus quote about fate, this festival circuit award-winning Chinese drama is a deceptively complex take on crime film conventions. Set in a rural small town in 1990s China, the story - on a surface level - involves a world-weary cop's (Zhu Liyong) investigation into the murder of an elderly woman by a river. Lurid twists follow, in noirish fashion, but the fact that the police operate out of an abandoned cinema provides a clue to director Wei Shujun's self-aware pitch. Shot on 16mm film, the result is a highly cinematic and subversive exploration of order and disorder, where the film-making breaks all the rules of the genre it draws on. With its deadpan humour, tragic backstories, atmospheric cinematography and striking dream sequences, Only the River Flows recalls elements of Don't Look Now and Mulholland Dr., but it remains a distinct work in its own right.

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6.6/10

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Credits

Cast

rolenameMa ZheZhu Yilong Bai JieChloe MaayanChief of PoliceHou Tianlai XieTong Linkai MadmanKang Chunlei Xu LiangWang Jianyu

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Crew

rolenameDirectorWei Shujun

Details

Theatrical distributor

Picturehouse

Released on

2024-08-16

Languages

Chinese

Guidance

Violence

Formats

Colour

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