IN Her two previous filmsChinese filmmaker Vivian itThere is obvious interest in surveillance has driven her stories. In its debut function “Trap Street”, CCTV is both a help and an obstacle; While others have “Angels Wear White” Hangs on the power of a well -set recording. If you can put it on tape, quen’s movies claim, you may be able to understand a little better. You can at least look at it again, maybe with fresh eyes, fresh perspective.
What is this filmBerlin Premiere ”Girls on thread“Is less obsessed with literal surveillance tape, but the filmmaker’s coercion against the power of the screen remains, even if they take a different form. Sure, we will not come to the screen for a while, instead open in a grateful, gloomy cave where one of our two leading ladies has been caught in a drug -induced hell. Soon, however, the fast Tian Tian (Lia Haocun) has freed herself, and lit for one place she thinks can house the only person left who loves her.
Suitable for Qu’s interests is the place Xiangshan Film City (more formally known as Xiangshan Global Studios), a massive film studio (and tourist attraction) that can accommodate dozens of productions at a time. And somewhere on that party Tian Tian believes that her strange and loved cousin fang di (Wen Qui, who previously played in QIS “Angels Wear White” when she was only 14 years old, when she was invoiced as Vicky Chen) works as a low -level stunt person. With nothing left to do and nowhere else to turn, Tian Tian is betting to the party, hoping she can not only find fang di, but get her to help Tian Tian to escape the very dangerous, very angry bully managers who held her That cave at first.
Two long cousins put on the mob while they also run around a giant movie? What could be better? And yet, “Girls on Wire”, as Qu also wrote, is often forced less by the invention of its set than the circumstances that received Tian Tian and Fang Di there in the first place. During the film’s almost two hours driving time, Qu between time and place turns and uses flashbacks to illustrate both cousin’s intense bond and the ways in which the rest of their seemingly convicted family helped break them apart five years ago.
Those who develop flashbacks tend to dilute a lot of the film’s energy, mainly throwing up the giant “stop” signs that the other things really get started, and pause to throw us back into the couple’s increasingly fucked childhood in chongqing. While adding feelings to the story – plus real dimension to the relationship between the cousins, which grew up more like sisters – their frequency ranks and prevents the film from ever feeling founded in what is happening Now. And that Now is by far the most convincing part of the film.
The film’s performances often suffer a similar fate. Haocun and Qi’s spectacle vary, but when the stars have the task of having more physical work, they shine (nothing in the film is better than its opening sequence, where Haocun muscles out of her prison, even if a sequence involving Qi repeatedly endure a wet , freezing cold stunt comes close). More emotional scenes, however, feel Hammy and didactic, heavy when they talk about the show (and telling hinges about being fucking blunt about the whole thing, to start).
But it is no wonder that the couple finds it so difficult to escape the drawing of their family’s legacy, as their identity is completely bound in it. Tian Tian has been doomed to follow in his drug addict’s footsteps (how and how the special situation is almost incredibly melodramatic), while Fang di long ago abandoned her professional dreams (along with all the cash she has earned) to help pay off the sizable debts from her factory owner parents (most apparently because of her nouveau riche mum’s inability to perform honest accounting. If everything sounds heavy.
Still, QI finds unexpected entertainment in trio of villains sent to grab the girls (all caricatures of these types of dudes, all smart handled), including a weak driver, a silent tough guy and the very put-out manager who cannot believe He must do this. When the three end up in Film City, their inability leads them to the wrong movie set, where they end up straight into the battle, care of a dizzy and fizzy sequence that sees them trying to do their jobs while also Pretend to be film extress. It is the kind of smart, out of the box that plays to its unique place and pushes the movie again.
Turns that it gives surprise to a movie that, so permeated by tragedy and the importance of family trauma, often seems to run to a single possible ending. But Qu’s ability to keep us focused on how we get there remains a highlight of the film, if not the type of high -thread act that Fang Di itself is used to try, at least another time of what it means to perform our pain and to find A place where it can drive to some kind of proverbial sunset.
Rating: B-
“Girls on Wire” premiered at 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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