Qiao (Tao Zhao) is, and will remain, a woman in control, even after serving a 5 year stretch for possession of an illegal firearm. (The gun belonged to her gangster beau.) According to Qiao, “Anything that burns at a high temperature is made pure.” A boat trip up the Yangtze in search of romance past finds Qiao hotter than a carbon arc. Writer-director Zhangke Jia has a blast rattling genre conventions. Along the way he pauses to answer the burning question, "How does one go through life with a gun secured inside the belt and neatly tucked under the back pleat of a sport coat?" For those who regularly use lack of strong female characters as an excuse to avoid going out to the movies, it’s time to get out of the house. In a performance that spans nearly two decades, Tao Zhao acts her age at every step of the way, and does so with very little in the way of Max Factor waning. She will leave you breathless. (2018) — Scott Marks
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