The Crossing [Guo Chun Tian] **** (2018, Huang Yao, Sunny Sun) – Movie Review

Giving an attractive, compelling, credible performance, Huang Yao is a sympathetic young heroine as Peipei, who has spent much of the 16 years of her life travelling between Hong Kong where she studies and Shenzhen (the port city of mainland China) where she lives with her mother.

A chance circumstance prompts Peipei to join a smuggling gang and use her student identity to smuggle iPhones from Hong Kong to the mainland, to make the  money to realise her dream of seeing snow in Japan and spending the Christmas holidays at a Japanese hot spring with her best friend.

Unfortunately Peipei falls in with her best friend’s boyfriend, Hao (Sunny Sun), who is cheating on the smuggling gang. It is all quite sunny and straightforward at the start, but obviously Peipei is going to get into a lot of trouble one way or another, or even every which way, eventually.

Part thriller, part coming of age drama, part social document, writer-director Bai Xue’s 2018 film The Crossing [Guo Chun Tian] keeps fresh and surprising right up to its unexpected finish. That conclusion will frustrate many, but it is a clever place to stop. Bai Xue has made his points and told his story, even if it is a neverending story.

The score and the freeze frame moments will frustrate many too, but they are entertaining and stylish, adding to the pleasure of the movie, even if they seem at odds with the realistic, vibrant view of Chinese street, home and city life. The Crossing is a highly atmospheric film, with much striking cinematography (by Songri Piao), and would of course make a great thriller, but Bai Xue has other, real world things on his mind.

 © Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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