The much anticipated follow-up of his Golden Bear winner BLACK COAL, THIN ICE (2014), Diao Yi'nan's Cannes-entry THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is a contemporary crime drama set in Wuhan, Hubei Province, circa 2009.
Starting in medias res, small-time malefactor-turned-fugitive Zhou Zenong (Hu) meets Aiai (Gwei), a local hooker (emphasized as “pei yong nü”, a girl who accompanies her client swimming in the titular lake) at the train station (the film's Chinese title literally means: a meet-up in a southern station), who informs him that Zhou's wife Yang Shujuan (Wan, masterfully wringing trepidation, oscillation and disdain out of her recalcitrant suppression) cannot rat on him in order to collect the munificent reward issued by the police, and propounds that she might take her place, but with a fee. Then Zhou narrates the story how he is caught up in the internecine gang war and ends up killing a cop while fleeing for his life . Now, his own resolution is to leave some money for his family,but does Aiai is as trustworthy as she seems? With a bounty on his head, both police force and rival gangsters are in hot pursuit, the cat-and-mouse game is infused with impending danger, a predestination of doom and abrupt violence.
Since the film is entirely spoken in Wuhan dialect (kudos to the main cast and their dialect coaches), for the majority of Chinese audience, which means subtitles is a requisite to understand the plot, Diao perceptibly carves out a tenuous mutual attraction between Zenong and Aiai, and the two fine actors exhibit tenacious resilience in restraint and nuances. For Hu Ge, it is also a physical transmogrification that persuasily shucks off his heartthrob mass appeal and signifies a wide road ahead in the mode of a serious thespian; as for Taiwanese actress Gwei Lunmei, who also triumphantly conceals her modern-look and urban delicacy, eloquently morphs into a conflicted character living in the margin with no hope in sight, during a nocturnal boat trip on the placid lake,the vestigial human-to-human compassion and connection brings a chink of warmth into this largely grim tale.
Installing a lethal forklift to whittle a whizzing noggin, orchestrating a deadly close encounter within a dilapidated tenement, Diao acquit himself as a talented aesthete emulating Nicolas Winding Refn, his nightly chromatic shade is beguilingly entrancing and mystifying, salted with visual curios and erupted violence, he knows all too well how to stitch up an indigenous brocade that allures mostly to the unfamiliar eyes, but as the film's whimpering finale portends, his faculty hasn't mellowed into something more consistently sui generis, he seems to wallow in genre pieces without distinction in terms of a purpose, like BLACK COAL, THIN ICE, shock treatment prevails resounding social critique, on that front, his coeval Bi Gan might emerge higher with his wholesome take on the nostalgic whims and as an indomitable technical whiz.
That said, THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is still a wide ride to behold mesmerizingly for Chinese audience who are craving for something other than the glut of airy period fantasy, patchy animation, youth-pandering romance and low-rent comedy, and in the end, It boasts a stimulating message of sisterly solidarity, although, a concession to the governmental censorship is ineluctable, enough is as good as a feast, one should also bear in mind.
referential entries: Diao's BLACK COAL, THIN ICE (2014, 7.3/10); Nicolas Winding Refn's DRIVE (2011, 7.8/10); Bi Gan's LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (2018, 7.9/10).
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