A 75-minute emotional grenade about three men, one woman, and the wreckage of who they used to be.
Phoenix is a film that reflects the love life of modern people. Ji Tong, Chen Lang, and Ma Wen reunite after 10 years. Their lives have changed a lot: Ji is a down-and-out literati, Chen the owner of a small leisure center, and Ma is in jail. Ma asks his former lover, Tong Fei, to come see him on the same day that Chen and Ji visit. Tong's beauty attracts both men — Tong chooses Ji. Chen then pursues a relationship with an online lover, Xia Yi, but once the relationship is consummated, he doesn't know what to do. While at first, this film seems like a typical romantic drama, Ding Jiancheng and Xu Wei - as sixth generation purveyors of the avant-garde - are up to something more here, as is gradually revealed through the relationships between the characters.
Direction
Ding Jiancheng's surgical observation of masculine collapse.
Writing
Dialogue that reveals everything through what goes unsaid.
Director
Ding Jiancheng
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of China's Sixth Generation movement, rejecting glossy urban narratives for raw examinations of ordinary people crushed by economic transformation.
The title 'Phoenix' bitterly evokes rebirth mythology that none of these characters can actually access.
CN
