Synopsis
A gangster on the run sacrifices everything for his family and a woman he meets while on the lam.
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Cast
- Hu GeZhou Zenong
- Gwei Lun-meiLiu Aiai
- Liao FanCaptain Liu
- Wan QianYang Shujun
- Qi DaoHua Hua
- Huang JueYan Ge
- Zeng MeihuiziPing Ping
- Zhang YicongXiao Dongbei
- Chen YongzhongClient
- Li ZhipengChang Zhao
Recommendations
- 83
The A.V. Club
What it’s really about is the interplay of shadows and neon, and the endless possibilities of bodies in motion—planted on speeding motorcycles and racing up and down staircases, always chasing or being chased. - 80
CineVue
The editing might be unexpected, unconventional, a bit annoying, but it is also very smart. Creating as it does a vital tension between plot and theme, pushing the two characters unrelentingly towards an event horizon and black hole denouement. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
A film that doesn’t hit you like a tidal wave as much as it gradually washes over you, leaving in its wake a series of memorable set-pieces and a dense, dark web of violence and fatality. - 80
Screen Daily
Diao’s flamboyant direction means that he often sets up one elaborately staged tableau just for a single shot, those shots sometimes coming in expansive flurries; some action scenes also feature lightning inserts fired off with surreal abruptness, as in the first gang rumble. - 80
Variety
It may refer inescapably to genre classics from elsewhere, but The Wild Goose Lake is like an organic feature of the Chinese cinematic landscape, as though it pooled onto the screen in all its oily, murky glory, having welled up from deep inside the ground. Suddenly, China feels like the noirest place on Earth. - 80
Time Out
The story itself, a twisty, hard-to-keep-track-of tale of revenge and double and triples crosses, is not especially remarkable. But that barely matters when there’s such virtuoso image-making on display. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Like a more showily virtuosic version of his countryman Jia Zhangke (who worked with Liao in his own recent gangster thriller “Ash Is Purest White”), Diao uses the conventions of genre to illuminate a world where crime, corruption, rapid social flux and soul-crushing inequality are inextricably intertwined. - 67
IndieWire
The musicality of Diao’s cinema has never been more symphonic, but it comes at the expense of his ability to properly conduct this script.
