The Monroe through-line culminates in a beautiful cinematic image at the film’s close, but it’s a kind of triumph that doesn’t usually grace the movie screen.

| Dec 5, 2023

Vivian Qu's stunning critique of attitudes towards women in China...

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 23, 2020

Angels Wear White unravels with the vague trappings of a crime thriller or mystery, but it is more than a detective story inflected with social justice themes.

| Mar 12, 2020

A poetic elegy for lost childhood and societal justice.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 3, 2019

Heartbreaking and rousing in equal measure, it is simply not possible to watch without feeling incentivised to act. A film that lingers in the mind.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 21, 2019

Using the powerful symbol of the Monroe edifice throughout the film, and an apparently non-threatening seaside location, Qu has made a harsh feminist critique of present-day-on-the-surface-modern China's endemic attitudes towards women.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2018

...a fast-paced, beautifully-shot thriller set in contemporary China, and a film that would be well worth seeing even if the subject matter were not so timely.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Oct 11, 2018

Zhou, in particular, gives a heartbreaking performance.

| Sep 6, 2018

A poised and perceptive crime drama... every frame leaves an imprint, both visually and emotionally.

| Jul 31, 2018

The subject sounds heavy, but writer-director Vivian Qu, following her superb debut, Trap Street, is more poet than social activist.

| Jul 26, 2018

Anchored by two strong performances...Qu rarely veers away from one girl or the other, a smart and sensitive decision to witness and digest the world from that perspective.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 26, 2018

Shooting largely with a handheld camera, Qu generates a jittery energy that makes the characters' stress palpable. This feeling escalates as the investigation closes in.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 27, 2018

The film offers a thoughtful, textured and quietly furious criticism of a sexist Chinese system and society.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 31, 2018

Qu fleshes out her characters to expose the societal and familial pressures that tend to limit options for females.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 31, 2018

Remarkable youth performances anchor Vivian Qu's rigorous procedural Angels Wear White, about the adults who exploit children-and the systemic misogyny that protects them.

| May 31, 2018

A bleak, bold and quietly seething look at the misogynistic culture faced by young girls in contemporary China.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 18, 2018

In its perceptions and mood, "Angels Wear White" plays like acutely serious female noir.

| May 17, 2018

A striking resemblance to "The Florida Project" for its motel locale, its class consciousness and above all its cinematic mastery.

| May 4, 2018

A tough and unsparing drama that vividly brings to light the kind of narrative too many people have endured over the years.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 4, 2018

As a writer-director, Qu never pulls her punches, while keeping the bad guys and their horrific violence at the edge of the frame.

| May 3, 2018