Girls on Wire
想飞的女孩
China, 2025, colour, 1.85/1.33:1, 113 mins.
Director: Wen Yan 文晏 [Vivian Qu].
Rating: 4/10.
Despite good leads, this tale of two female cousins reunited after several years is holed by a disorganised script, forced dialogue and unconvincing emotions.
STORY
A city in China, the present day. Imprisoned and drugged in a cell underground, Tian Tian (Liu Haocun), 22, manages to escape, killing one of her jailors in the process and making off on a motorbike. On a costume martial arts film at a large studio complex in another city, Tian Tian’s cousin Fang Di (Wen Qi), 27, is working as a stunt double, doing exacting wire work which makes her appear to fly. Starving, Tian Tian tries to get into the giant studio to see her but is shut out; instead she steals a dress from the costume department. Fang Di works round the clock to send money back to her family; she’s also three week behind in her payments to loan shark Big Sister Yang. When she’s told a night water shoot has been brought forward to that evening, she agrees to do it for the money, eeven though, as she tells sympathetic assistant director Tiezi (Liu Yitie), she’s having her period. (Fang Di and Tian Tian had been raised together in an extended, feuding family that included Fang Di’s businesswoman mother, Tian Lihua [Peng Jing], and Tian Tian’s drug-addicted father, Tian Jun [Zhou You], who were sister and brother. As the older cousin, the young Fang Di [Zhou Tianmi] had often taken care of the young Tian Tian [Zhang Mu’en] like a sister, though the latter often took advantage of her, wheedling money out of Fang Di’s mother to support her father’s drug habit.) The night shoot, which involves Fang Di being lowered into a river and being hoisted out of the water, is taxing for her, especially as the director (Liu Mingzhe) insists on multiple retakes. Meanwhile, Tian Tian has managed to track her down, watching from the sidelines; when shooting ends, she helps take Fang Di, cold and exhausted, back to her room. The two haven’t seen each other for five years, since Fang Di left home to make a living in the film world. Tian Tian also has a young daughter, Lulu, back home who’s almost five. Next day, Fang Di attends an acting audition but walks out before it’s over, saying she’s no good. Thinking Tian Tian just wants money to support her daughter, Fang Di grudgingly withdraws all her cash and gives it to her; Tian Tian refuses it, and the cash is instead snatched by a young man working for Big Sister Yang. Meanwhile, three gangsters, led by Hu (Geng Le), have arrived in town looking for Fang Di as a way to reach Tian Tian; they manage to get forged passes to the studio and disrupt the shooting of several films. (As an adult, Fang Di had given her mother money to keep her clothing business afloat. She’d also been harrassed by Tian Tian’s father for money to support his drugs habit.) The gangsters finally track down Fang Di and tell her that Tian Tian owes them a lot of money borrowed by Tian Tian’s father. Fang Di denies having any contact with Tian Tian, but the gangsters give her 24 hours to find her cousin. Fang Di finds Tian Tian at the mini-mart where she’s temporarily working. She’s going through contractions from the drugs pumped into her while held in the cell, but the mini-mart’s sympathetic young manager, Ming (Zhang Youhao), helps them to a hideaway out of town.
REVIEW
Eight years after the naturalistic, affecting youth drama Angels Wear White 嘉年华 (2017), indie producer-turned-director Wen Yan 文晏 [Vivian Qu] returns with her third feature as writer-director, Girls on Wire 想飞的女孩, centred on two female cousins who renew their close relationship after a gap of five years. Alas, despite the presence of Angels’ striking lead actress, Wen Qi 文淇, and good support from Liu Haocun 刘浩存 as the other cousin, Girls has all the faults of Wen’s first feature, mystery-drama Trap Street 水印街 (2013), with a dramatically disorganised script, no emotional clout, and hints of the arty affectations that plagued some of the films she earlier worked on as a producer (Night Train 夜车, 2007, and Knitting 牛郎织女, 2008). Though the most “commercial” of Wen’s three features to date, it took only a puny RMB17 million on Mainland release soon after its Berlin festival premiere, some RMB5 million below the more specialised Angels.
Given the large time-gap since her last movie, it’s especially disappointing that Wen (real name: Qu Wenyan 曲文燕), who’s now in her mid-50s, seems to have learned nothing about screenplay construction or creating involving characters after almost two decades in the industry. (Prior to working on Night Train, she’d spent several years studying art history in New York, whence she returned in 2003.) The relationship between cousins Fang Di and Tian Tian, forged by growing up together in one extended family, is a total construct, with no natural reason to exist apart from providing a filmic reason for the two women to be reunited in their 20s after five years apart.
Copious flashbacks (all in Academy screen ratio) to their childhood together, where Fang Di virtually played the elder, protective sister, show a relationship, in an already feuding family, in which Tian Tian often took advantage of the older girl’s kindness – a theme which carries on throughout the film as Tian Tian, who’s escaped imprisonment by some loan sharks, seeks Fang Di out for help. Fang Di, who has her own problems working as a movie stuntwoman to pay her family’s debts, isn’t exactly pleased to see Tian Tian, and their relationship seems forced – hardly strong enough to pivot a whole movie on. It would, in fact, make more sense as a study of a lesbian relationship gone sour, rather than one between cousins, though Girls, despite a few hints, isn’t willing to go down that rabbit-hole.
As the tomboyish stuntwoman who’ll take on any work, Wen, now a grown-up 21 playing 27, etches a strong character on her own terms. The Taiwan-born, Mainland-raised actress (real name: Chen Wenqi 陈文淇) has made a whole career so far out of playing defiant-looking characters and here her sullen gaze is given full display, especially when stoically enduring multiple takes of being hoisted out of a freezing river when she’s on her period. As her emotionally demanding cousin, Jilin-born Liu, 24 playing 22, who was so good as the ragamuffin in One Second 一秒钟 (2020) and no-nonsense girlfriend in A Little Red Flower 送你一朵小红花 (2020), provides solid support. Unfortunately, there’s no natural on-screen chemistry between the two actresses and their dialogue, like so much of the film’s, sounds forced.
Few of the supporting characters rise beyond plot conveniences, apart from Chongqing-born actress Peng Jing 彭静 (the petty gangster’s girlfriend in Angels, plus a co-writer here) as Fang Di’s strong-willed mother, a role that frustratingly doesn’t get the development it deserves. Tonally, also, Wen can’t seem to make her mind up, introducing three comic gangsters (of whom the boss is played by reliable character actor Geng Le 耿乐) halfway through who seem to have strayed in from another movie. It’s another distracting element in a film that has no idea what its centre is, and at almost two hours is some 15-20 minutes too long. The seashore ending is as cliched as the dialogue that leads to it (“Tomorrow I’ll take you to see the sunrise”).
The film was shot from Feb-Apr 2024, starting in Zhejiang province. The use of some dialect implies that the girls’ home city is Chongqing, central China. The film’s Chinglish title refers to Fang Di’s work doing wire-fu; the original Chinese title means “The Girl Who Wanted to Fly”, a rather laboured metaphor for her (supposedly suppressed) ambitions.
CREDITS
Presented by Hangzhou L’Avventura Films (CN), Beijing JQ Spring Pictures (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Aranya Pictures (CN).
Script: Wen Yan [Vivian Qu], Peng Jing, Chen Xiang. Photography: Zhang Chaoyi, Feng Yuchao. Editing: Yang Hongyu. Editing advice: Nicolas Chaudeurge. Music: Wen Zi. Art direction: Li Xiaoliang. Costumes: Yang Yuxiang. Styling: Su Chao. Sound: Yang Jiang, Zhao Nan. Action: Liu Mingzhe. Visual effects: Zhao Xiao. Executive direction: Cao Gang.
Cast: Liu Haocun (Tian Tian), Wen Qi (Fang Di), Zhang Youhao (Ming), Liu Yitie (Tiezi), Peng Jing (Tian Lihua, Fang Di’s mother), Jian Kang (mute gangster), Yang Haoyu (Da Bin), Zhou You (Tian Jun, Tian Tian’s father), Geng Le (Hu, head gangster), Liu Yuanyuan (Tian Tian’s mother), Chen Liang (Fang Di’s father), Shui Qing (grandfather), Chobuhuaje (Huang Mao/Yellow Hair), Zhao Runnan (Dongdong, Tian Tian’s boyfriend), Zhou Tianmi (Fang Di, aged 12), Zhang Mu’en (Tian Tian, aged 7), Liu Mingzhe (first director).
Premiere: Berlin Film Festival (Competition), 17 Feb 2025.
Release: China, 8 Mar 2025.