Gong gives it her best shot, but there’s only so much she can do.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 27, 2022

A spotty fusion of spy-story contrivances and diffuse themes of truth and artifice...

| Apr 21, 2022

[Gong] conveys depths of pain and longing even when the script offers none, seducing us as effortlessly as Jean seduces her enemies.

| Apr 21, 2022

Filmed with stifling hand-held photography, many scenes plod along in real time without a momentous or compelling pace. The sound designs focus on background noises, instead of a musical score, also soon becomes more irritating than intriguing.

| Apr 20, 2022

The hegemony of history is rigid, but Lou Ye is still able to disrupt it in the form of its representation.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 4, 2019

With bitter irony seething in his blend of kinetic camerawork and silky black-and-white tones, Lou borrows the form of historical drama to expose the corruption and the terror of a modern surveillance state.

| Sep 30, 2019

As elusive and unsatisfying for us as it is for its various characters.

| Original Score: C+ | Sep 5, 2019

This moody, black-and-white period piece always intrigues, even if it only intermittently catches fire.

| Sep 4, 2019

Theatre and reality merge to elegant but confused effect in Saturday Fiction...

| Sep 4, 2019

As though to compensate for having far too many characters, Ma Yingi's script skimps on characterization - no one here has any defining personality trait except untrustworthiness.

| Sep 4, 2019