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The Wild Goose Lake

Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui (The Wild Goose Lake)

2019

Diao Yinan

Gwei Lun-Mei, Hu Ge, Liao Fan, Regina Wan ...

6.2

1,791

Thriller. Drama When small-time mob leader Zhou Zenong (Hu Ge) accidentally kills a cop, a dead-or-alive bounty is placed on his head, forcing him on the lam from both the police as well as dangerous gangsters out for the reward. Hiding out in China's densely populated (and deeply divided) Wuhan province, Zhou becomes entangled with enigmatic Liu Aiai (Gwei Lun Mei), a young prostitute who has mysterious intentions of her own.

	Author	Review
United States	Jordan Mintzer The Hollywood Reporter	"A film that doesn’t hit you like a tidal wave as much as it gradually washes over you, leaving in its wake a series of memorable set-pieces and a dense, dark web of violence and fatality."	POS
United States	Tomris Laffly rogerebert.com	"You will feel like pausing often to admire all the exacting on-screen qualities frame to frame (...) Yinan signals the makings of a major filmmaker (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	David Ehrlich IndieWire	"An invigorating, poetic, and discretely brilliant Chinese noir that adds up to less than the sum of its parts, Diao Yinan’s 'The Wild Goose Lake' can’t help but feel like a mild comedown"	NEU
United States	Jessica Kiang Variety	"In any film noir, there is The Moment It All Goes Wrong. But it is unlikely you will soon see that moment, or any of the genre’s other staple plot points, staged and executed with quite the slick, dark dazzle of Yinan"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"I felt that we were not permitted much access to the character’s innermost thoughts, and so some of the film’s romance, and its fatalism, did not have the piercing impact as the visual masterstrokes (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU
United Kingdom	Jonathan Romney Screendaily	"Diao’s film confirms that the noir tradition is alive and well and being comprehensively reinvented in China (...) [It] should provide a significant crossover with serious export potential"	POS
United States	Ben Croll The Wrap	"This follow-up [to 'Black Coal'] is bit less impactful and a lot more indulgent, but it can also be an awful lot of fun in spots (...) The film’s fractured chronology and flashback structure render the narrative somewhat opaque"	NEU
	Fabien Lemercier Cineuropa	"A work of stunning virtuosity (...) A dazzling, labyrinthine journey through a criminal underworld."	POS

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