Four strangers, one ruin, infinite winter—where karaoke becomes confession and silence speaks loudest.
Four wraithlike figures of different ages and pasts, haunted by memory, drift along Nanjing's wintry riverbanks. They share an abandoned ruin where talk turns to poetry, painterly pauses, instrumental reveries and the unabashed group therapy of karaoke.
Direction
Zhang Xinyang makes 146 minutes feel like breath held underwater.
Cinematography
Nanjing winter as fifth character—grey, gorgeous, unforgiving.
Writing
Dialogue that circles truth like river ice.
Director
Zhang Xinyang
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The karaoke sequences were shot in a real abandoned factory with non-professional actors from Nanjing's river district.
The title references the last wild panda sighting in Nanjing province—1962, never confirmed—mirroring the characters' own undocumented lives.
CN
