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Chongqing Blues review
:. Director: Wang Xiaoshuai
:. Starring: Lin Quanhai, Zhu Qing
:. Running Time: 1:45
:. Year: 2010
:. Country: China, Taiwan
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For several years now, the Chinese film industry has been anxious to portray a country in a state of flux. The clash of generations explodes on screen with, on the one hand, these idle hipsters in tune with their technologically saturated times and open to the West and its Grand Capitalism, but disorientated. And on the other, exceeded parents, steeped in traditions and family values that they no longer control. It is this emotional distance that serves as the starting point in Chongqing Blues. A father who abandons his son to start a new family, returns 14 years later, after learning that his offspring has been guilty of taking hostages in a supermarket, resulting in his death.
A theme repeatedly brought to the screen, a story one hundred times recounted. Predictable from start to finish, served by lackluster direction and with no surprises, theis film disappoints. Ah yes, the father, in his quest for truth, will meet all the protagonists, from the victims to the police officer who shot his son, as well as the girlfriend, the cause of this killing spree. Never trusting the intelligence of the viewer, Wang Xiaoshuai reveals the truth, step by step throughout the encounters, refusing any ellipsis, any off camera work, any poetry, preferring pathos supported by a tearful soundtrack. The testimonials follow one another, people start to speak, and the pieces of the puzzle fit together ornamentally to the suited flashbacks. Alas, the idea of the son's portrait, captured on a surveillance camera recording as only memory of his face, and of which no trace remains, could have seduced. The more the father enlarges the image, the more it becomes indiscernible, blurred and escapes him, to finally finish as ash, just as the son's body whose mother has scattered the ashes in the river ... No surprises, then, in this lazy drama that takes viewers by the hand, and allows itself no shadows, no mystery. A miss.
Moland Fengkov
Translated into English by Christina Azarnia
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
Movie Reviews: from 2012 to present
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