Seafood
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Profile
- Movie: Seafood
- Chinese: 海鲜 (Haixian)
- Director: Wen Zhu
- Writer: Wen Zhu
- Producer:
- Cinematographer:
- Release Date: September 28, 2001
- Runtime: 86 min.
- Language: Mandarin
- Country: China
Plot
Set just prior to Chinese New Year in the cold snowy winter off-season in Beidaihe, the summer resort for Communist Party leaders, we follow a depressed yet striking looking young woman, who goes by ZHANG Xiaomei among other names (played by JIN Zi) as she looks for an open hotel. She doesn't speak much, and we infer that she is suicidal from her actions and demeanour rather than her words. A police officer, DENG (CHENG Taisheng), takes a particular interest in her well-being; he decides that she is a prostitute intent on suicide and that he can convince her to stay alive. His main methods are very questionable – sexual assault and stalking – and he also tries to convince her that eating seafood makes life worth living (he has a three-point explanation of this theory). For a few days they eat seafood and drive around the sights of frozen Beidaihe; she has a cold, then he has a cold. As they walk around on the crunchy snow he takes a lot of snapshots of her, which I found somewhat jarring given the basis of their relationship. She doesn't seem remotely interested in him, but she doesn't manage to successfully avoid him either. Deng seems to be a domineering and corrupt policeman, always involved in a series of favours and gifts, and his domestic life seems cruel and perverse as well. There is a strange dream-like segment where an old peasant woman claims she has been robbed, and Deng tries to chase the robbers. I would like to have more information on the Chinese music Deng listens to on his car radio; it includes pop music, odd historical ballads of emperors, and opera. The end of the Beidaihe section of the film puts Zhang in an impossible situation with Deng, and it doesn't end at all as Deng might expect. There is a surprising epilogue, also somewhat focussed on money. It is difficult to discuss this film's endings without revealing too much of the plot, but at least one is a triumph for Zhang. -- Senses of Cinema
