Xue yun

Han Jiang-yu (Lee Kang-sheng), schwarzer Anzug, weißes Hemd, rauchend an einer Straßenecke. Diesiger Regen im Licht der Laternen. Eine Languste wird bei lebendigem Leib mit kochendem Wasser übergossen, daneben Karaoke und Telefonate von Möchtegern-Bonzen über faule Deals. Bauboom in Hainan. Han Jiang-yu steht nicht ganz auf der richtigen Seite, nach 10 Jahren Knast endlich draußen muss er erst wieder Fuß fassen. Er besucht seine Ex in ihrem Frisiersalon. Sie hat inzwischen ein Kind, könnte seines sein: Der einsame Wolf ist sofort wieder in ihrem Bann – und wir auch. Ein hypnotisierender Film. (Katja Wiederspahn)

A man returns home after ten years in prison and finds everything has changed. Quite apart from shifts in life and love, the tropical Chinese landscape in and around the island of Hainan is now full of construction sites: gigantic apartment buildings are being slowly built on these coasts. As a man of need and desire, he joins this enterprise. His needs gravitate toward resources (to have a roof over his head), and his desires towards a former love, a woman from the island with a small daughter. XUE YUN finds unlikely beauty in the greyness of this place, full of concrete buildings, roads and dingy alleys: every dark corner has a light, and the seaside apartments yet to be completed are surrounded by vegetation that is almost menacing; a flooded abandoned construction site can create enough mirrors to reflect the sky and beyond. In the midst of all this, a life of housing frauds and scams moves forward. Like in every (slow) melodrama, making or sustaining a family will not be easy, as business never goes well for those who struggle, and souls tend to sink with the economy. The man is played by the legendary Lee Kang-sheng, whose face is infinitely fascinating, a whole world contained in his every gesture. (Lucía Salas)

Wu Lang: XUE YUN (2021, K)