Reviewed by: Hoiye
I have a habit of refusing to search up synopses of movies I intend on watching, and resisting all related content on social media including trailers, audience reviews, clips, etc. I have come to enjoy going into a theatre having only a mere idea of whatever will be screened. It’s a process of discovery — good or bad.
With that same approach, I walked into the screening of Only the River Flows by Chinese filmmaker Wei Shujun without knowing much about it, except that the poster, clearly inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream, looked cool and that the main character resembled renowned Hong Kong actor Tony Leung. In a line, the film is a commendable cinematic neo-noir mystery crime-thriller that falls under the genre of arthouse cinema. And in another line, the film is everything all at once — or at least it tries to be.
There is much to unpack in the mystery that unfolds. Set in the remote Banpo Town in rural China, 1990, the film begins as a solid crime-thriller plot which follows Ma Zhe, Chief of the Criminal Police, as he investigates the murder of an elderly woman by the river. All evidence seems to point to a clear culprit and an arrest is swiftly made.
However, Ma Zhe is disturbed by this easy conclusion and believes the real murderer is still on the loose — and this is where the plot begins to diverge. Shifting away from the murder investigation, the film explores the lives of the town’s people, revealing dark secrets and inconsistencies that further complicate the already closed investigation.
Midway through the film, it turns into an exploration of the main character’s psyche as he spirals into near madness from the failed investigation. This particular twist in the plot is conveyed through surreal, at times comedic dream sequences which reveal Ma Zhe’s faltering mental state as he chases dead ends and the truth perpetually eludes him.
As a sucker for weird, surrealist or abstract story-telling techniques in film and prose, it pains me to say that the way Only the River Flows executes it feels lacking. There is a frivolous playing up of the arthouse element in the film, particularly in its depiction of Ma Zhe’s nightmares. Certainly, the dream sequence makes for a unique stylistic choice that differentiates the film from other more conventional crime-thrillers but it does not add to the story, and ends up detracting from the suspense necessary to anchor it in its filmic genre.
Genre-bending, merging, breaking, are of course common in many cinematic works but it can crumble when the film doesn’t quite know where it wants to stand. That is the main glaring flaw in Wei’s film.
Further, the occasional easter eggs scattered throughout the film to add mystery and intrigue are often unexplored or lack significance to tie their relevance to the story. Instead, I was left with more questions that the film never quite answers.
If you are going in expecting a suspenseful crime-thriller with a predictable arc, Only the River Flows will only edge you — despite my criticisms, I do think Wei does that well — and then utterly confuse you. It’s up to you to decide if that confusion is a worthy contribution to the film’s mystery.
Hoiye: Hoiye loves people’s ideas and their stories, and is still striving to uncover more and share them better. Film and literature are places where Hoiye seeks out these voices to explore more narratives from around the region. Outside Hoiye’s air-conditioned cocoon with books and films, you can find Hoiye falling off plastic rocks and going on solo coffee date.
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This review is also published on Singapore Film Society as part of *SCAPE’s Film Critics Lab: A Writing Mentorship Programme.
