Cinematographer: Yang Zhanwen
Editor: Zhou Hao, Yang Zhanwen
Sound: Li Jianghai, Dai Yufei, Shen Chen, Zhou Fengqi, Liu Peng
Cast: Zhou Hao, Liu Xiaoxiao, Li Jinkang, Zhou Fengqi
DCP, color, in Mandarin w/ English s/t, 95 min.
Zhou Hao’s admirable first feature introduces a trio of social outsiders who also discover common ground in a delicate and affirmative group portrait. In a narrow alleyway in a quiet corner of the city, a young male prostitute who goes by the name “Tuberose” meets a female counterpart, called “Narcissus.” The two begin a friendship upon realizing that they are not really competitors, at least for the same kind of male clients. Enter another young man, presumably just another john, who interestingly also gives a code name (“Rose”), and who pursues the boy romantically, and insistently. From this beginning, the story becomes an intricate example of the “eternal triangle,” as the attraction between the two men and the allegiance between the two sex workers, vie for prevalence, their makeshift family structure achieving a strange viability.
It is to the great credit of director Zhou Hao (who appears in the role of hustler “Tuberose”) that such a schematic story unfolds with such natural ease. The actors’ unforced performances account for this too; as does a scenario that positions their allegiances as always evolving, often with discussions between any two of the characters setting up a new challenge or possibility for the absent third person. Will Tuberose allow his heart to be melted? Will his admirer achieve love without compromising his dignity? These and other enigmas propel the story as loyalties and emotions shift subtly, but constantly in a delicately orchestrated dance, offering myriad negotiations of intimacy, and of short and long-term survival for all involved. Purportedly written in a single week and shot over a month-long series of nighttime shootsa group of Zhou Hao’s college classmates, the simple drama bursts with dramatic interest, fueled by the heartening suggestion of social cohesion across class and gender lines, and the torch songs of Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng. – Shannon Kelley
Zhou Hao was born in 1992 in Chongqing, where he also studied at the College of Media and Arts at the Chongqing University of Technology. Pursuing filmmaking as a broad, expressive medium that combines aspects of art, literature, music and photography, he finished several short films, including Addiction (2012) and Lust (2013) before completing The Night (2014), his first feature film, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Zhou Hao’s admirable first feature introduces a young male and female prostitute who become friends while working in the same narrow, urban alley, and a young man who loses his heart to the male hustler. A delicately orchestrated sequence of emotional exchanges in this triangle offer myriad negotiations of intimacy, and of short and long-term survival, for all involved. – Shannon Kelley
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