Feng Shui (2012)

North American Premiere!

Directed by Wang Jing

Wuhan wife and mother Li Baoli seems poised for a secure and happy family life. She has a steady gig as a shopkeeper’s helper, her husband Wu Xuewe has been newly promoted to a middle-management position at his factory, and the family is about to move to a new, high-rise apartment. And yet happiness strangely eludes Baoli’s grasp, a fact viewed with grave concern by her family and friends. Citing deprivation in her early life, and clearly driven by unseen demons, she relentlessly harasses and belittles Xuewe, calling him weak and inadequate even in front of their son, to whom she shows little motherly love or attention. When Xuewe predictably warms to the tenderness of a female colleague and Baoli senses the truth, she contrives a revenge that leads to disaster in the workplace, her marriage and her family. Baoli’s fortunes are changed again, triggering a second act in which the consequences of her actions continue to unfold, and denial and delusion serve as buttresses from the pain of it all.

Director Wang Jing renders this family story with shrewdness and compassion, creating characters with specific complexes, but implicitly locating the seeds of trouble in powerful crosscurrents of class and gender – aptly analogized by the intersection of multiple busy streets at the family’s new home. At the center of this chaotic convergence is Li Baoli, a woman perpetually clouded with confusion as to why her life is in such disarray, and perfectly realized by award-winning actor Yan Bingyan in a knockout performance.

– Shannon Kelley

Screenwriter: Wu Nan. Based on a novel by Fang Fang. Cinematographer: Liu Younian. Editor: Feng Wen. Cast: Yan Bingyan, Jiao Gang, Chen Gang.

HDCAM, color, Putonghua w/ English s/t, 120 min.