Film description

Chun, the captain of a small transport ship sailing up the river Yangtze, finds an old notebook filled with poems by someone who took the same route a decade earlier. The slow journey down the biggest Chinese water tract is paced to the rhythm of poetic verses and half-chance meetings with a mysterious woman who takes on a different form in every port.

The majestic beauty of the scenery and the striking expanse of the industrial landscapes are breathtaking – the cinematography for the film brought Mark Lee Ping-bing ("In the Mood for Love," "The Assassin") a Silver Bear at Berlinale. The winter journey from Shanghai to the origins of Yangtze on the Tibetan Plateau becomes not only an individual, existential journey of the protagonist, but also a meditation on the history of a country undergoing radical, irreversible changes, but at the same time immersed in the past and rediscovering its own ancient history. Yang follows the lead of classic literature, which portrayed Yangtze at the river of time. He combines crude realism with mythical symbols and elusive fantasy, creating a hypnotic epic – a modern-day Chinese odyssey.

Jagoda Murczyńska