Awards and festivals

Film description

A gloomy city in the Chinese province, a bag filled with money, and a few shady individuals hoping to snatch it. One of them is a man determined to get the money for his fiancee's plastic surgery. But the road to easy money leads through blood, tears, and shabby internet cafes.

The banknotes show the face of comrade Mao, but the piercing, mocking humor of the director is pointed towards capitalism. This satirical, punk animation bites at the problems of contemporary China – the ever-present feeling of unfulfillment, addiction to new technologies, social indifference, and the ruthless desire of material satisfaction. Liu Jian plays with the conventions of film noir, skillfully juggling the cultural allusions – from Quentin Tarantino to Leo Tolstoy, from Takeshi Kitano to the karaoke of social realism. The music by The Shanghai Restoration Project, combining hip-hop and melancholic electronics, perfectly complements the rough frames, showing the world devoid of illusions, tempting with empty promises.

Jagoda Murczyńska