All the Good Eyes
森中有林
China, 2026, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 116 mins.
Director: Zheng Zhi 郑执.
Rating: 7/10.
Drama about a group of people whose lives intertwine tragically across a quarter-century or so marks a notable film-making debut by Mainland-born novelist Zheng Zhi.
STORY
Shenyang city, northeast China, the end of last century. Lv Xinkai 吕新开. Born in Heilongjiang province and orphaned since the age of nine when his parents died in a wildfire and he subsequently moved to Shenyang, Lv Xinkai (Han Geng), 28, a bird-control officer at the airport, is playing with his catapult one evening at the window of his tiny rooftop flat, aiming at targets in the street blow. He hits a bottle, accidentally injuring a man, who’s taken to hospital. Next day, feeling guilty, he visits the man, Lian Jiahai (Yu Hewei), who says he may lose his left eye. Lv Xinkai promises to make amends, even if he has to borrow money; instead, Lian Jiahai, who is divorced, asks him to deliver a letter to a woman who runs a kimchi stall in the market. When he gets there, Lv Xinkai finds she has packed up and left, probably back to Beijing. Next day, when Lv Xinkai visits Lian Jiahui again to tell him the news, the latter asks if he would consider marrying his daughter, Lian Jie (Zhang Tian’ai). She is almost totally blind and works as a masseuse. The two meet and are attracted to each other. Eight years later. Lian Jiahai 廉加海. Lv Xinkai and Lian Jie are married and have a seven-year-old son, Lv Kuang (Yang Jinrui). They have invited Lian Jiahai, who now works delivering gas cylinders, round for dinner to celebrate his birthday but, when Lv Kuang says he’s ashamed of having such a grandfather, Lian Jiahai leaves. Instead, he eats with some old friends at a restaurant, where he bumps into his former lover, Wang Xiuyi (Gao Yuanyuan), who once ran the kimchi stall. She now has a new lover, powerful local gangster Hao Shengli (An Hanjin), who is in the same restaurant that evening. Lian Jiahai used to be a prison guard but lost his job after being falsely accused of hitting a prisoner. He still regularly visits a former prisoner – Wei Feng (Qiao Shan), who’s now a boiler stoker – though the two are scarcely friends. Wang Xiuyi tricks Lian Jiahui into visiting her at the flat bought by Hao Shengli where she lives with her 18-year-old son, Wang Fang (Xia Zhiguang), who’s about to take the college entrance exam. Wang Xiuyi and Lian Jiahai become friends again, Wang Xiuyi gets to know Lian Jie, and Lian Jiahai meets Wang Fang, who says he’s had an offer from a US university – the only problem being the fee is RMB400,000 a year for four years. Lian Jiahai later offers Wang Xiuyi to help pay. Five days later, Lian Jiahai is visited by police who want to question him about the sudden disappearance of Hao Shengli, who hasn’t been seen for five days. Wang Xiuyi is busy clearing up after a flood in her flat when Lian Jiahui visits to find out if she knows where Hao Shengli has gone; she denies any knowledge, but Lian Jiahai notices her face is bruised. Subsequently, Lian Jie is knocked down by a bus when someone grabs her bag in the street; Lv Xinkai becomes crazed and bent on revenge; and Wei Feng makes a major confession. Twenty Years Later. Wang Xiuyi 王秀义. Wang Fang visits his mother, who now has dementia, in an expensive care home in Sanya, Hainan island, southern China. They visit the home of Lian Jiahai, where Lv Xinkai and his grown son Lv Kuang (Wu Jiakai) are also staying. They are all then paid a surprise visit by Hao Shengli’s elder brother, Hao Shunli (Song Xiaobao), who’s just been released from prison.
REVIEW
A strong visual sense and equally strong performances – including one of the best, and most atypical, of her career from Gao Yuanyuan 高圆圆 – sustain All the Good Eyes 森中有林 through some of its structurally weaker moments, to generally satisfying results. The 
drama about a group of people whose lives intertwine tragically across a quarter-century or so marks a notable film-making debut by Mainland-born novelist Zheng Zhi 郑执, 39, adapting his own short story. Despite its name cast, however, the film performed weakly, taking a mere RMB16 million this spring.
Zheng was born in Shenyang, northeast China, and began writing while studying Chinese language and literature at Hong Kong Baptist University. (He now holds Hong Kong citizenship.) The original short story of Eyes was published in the 2020 collection 仙症 (literally, “Immortal Affliction”; see cover, left); a revised and expanded version (of novella length, adding almost 10,000 characters) was published in 2025 (see cover, below left), following Zheng’s thoughts after adapting the original into a film.
After a brief sequence in b&w that only makes sense when it’s repeated (in colour) 70 minutes later, the film settles down with the character of Lv Xinkai, a “bird-control officer” at Shenyang airport who lives on his own in a tiny rooftop flat and accidentally blinds a man in one eye when playing around with his homemade catapult one evening. Lv Xinkai tracks the victim down in hospital, apologises profusely and offers to compensate him; the man, a onetime prison guard, isn’t angry, and is touched by Lv Xinkai’s honesty – to the extent that he eventually asks if he’d be interested in marrying his daughter. Said daughter is young, beautiful and good-hearted – but almost completely blind. However, flash forward eight years and they’re a happily married couple with a young son. Her father is working as a gas-cylinder deliveryman, and a chance meeting by him with a woman he knew before his injury sets off a train of events that ends in tragedy for some.
The film falls into three sections, each with a main character’s name attached, and starts at “the end of last century” followed by leaps of eight and then 20 years – basically, 1997, 2005 and 2025. The way in which the story fans out, starting with a tiny accident and finally engulfing the lives of some half-dozen people, is beautifully handled and carries its own simmering tension. One may regret the long absence from the screen after the first 20 minutes of the opening character, the good-hearted Lv Xinkai, especially as played by the likeable Han Geng 韩庚. But his position is well filled by the de facto leading character, the partly blinded Lian Jiahai, played with morose subtlety by busy character actor Yu Hewei 于和伟 (the undercover agent in Cliff Walkers 悬崖之上, 2021; scene-stealing arrogant tycoon in Under the Light 坚如磐石, 2023; title character in black comedy World’s Greatest Dad 二手杰作, 2023). Lian, his ex-lover (played by Gao) and an ex-con frenemy (blank-faced comedian Qiao Shan 乔杉, providing some welcome black humour) keep the film motoring, along with several minor characters, until the final section, named after his ex-lover, Wang Xiuyi.
As good as everyone is – including supports such as Zhang Tian’ai 张天爱 (memorable in Legend of the Naga Pearls 鲛珠传, 2017, and The Return of the Lame Hero 毕正明的证明, 2025) as the blind daughter and comedian Song Xiaobao 宋小宝 cast against type as a gangster who dominates the final act – it’s Gao who really raises eyebrows with a character that’s way different from normal and an emotional range that’s completely unexpected. Once one of the queens of Mainland rom-coms, Gao effectively disappeared for several years after Let’s Get Married 咱们结婚吧 (2015), re-emerging as the knowing TV journalist in the light comedy Gold or Shit 走走停停 (2024; aka G for Gap). Now in her late 40s, and with a blousy hairdo, she’s almost unrecognisable as the tough survivor (and independent gangster’s moll) Wang Xiuyi, who re-emerges in Lian Jiahui’s life and affections. The scenes between the two during the films’ central hour are like emotional interludes as each tries to find a comfortable way to re-engage.
The final act, set 20 years later and named after Wang Xiuyi, feels a bit staged following the previous 80 minutes that have impressively mixed naturalism within a formalised structure. It’s one of several small missteps that prevent Eyes from fully realising its potential, including details of Lian Jiahui and Wang Xiuyi’s original relationship (something to do with him saving her from suicide, but otherwise unclear), the way in which the blind daughter’s character is initially built up but then virtually discarded, and the come-and-go treatment of Lv Xinkai.
On a technical level, the film is very smooth, as Zheng has sensibly surrounded himself with an experienced crew, from d.p. Piao Songri 朴松日 (Sister 我的姐姐, 2021) to French editor Matthieu Laclau. The score by avant-garde music producer/composer Jin Wulin 金武林, a northeasterner who has lived in Shenyang, is a major help in sustaining atmosphere, almost like a spaghetti western’s in its brooding power. The film was shot in Zheng’s own home city of Shenyang from mid-Apr to early Jun 2025, and has an unforced, natural feel for the city’s greyer, more working-class denizens. Aside from the opening sequence, b&w is also used briefly in flashbacks.
The Chinese title is an untranslateable pun that literally means “In (a) Forest Are Trees” but also plays on the characters for “forest” 森 and “trees” 林, both of which are built using the character for “wood” 木, the first with three, the second with two. It could, therefore, also be translated as “In (the character) 森 Is 林” or, more freely, as “In (Any) Trio Is a Pair”, referring to relationships.
CREDITS
Presented by MaxTimes (Shanghai) (CN), Shanghai Such A Good Film (CN), Dabaitao (Hubei) Film & TV Culture Development (CN), Hubei Yangtze River Film Group (CN).
Script: Zheng Zhi. Short story: Zheng Zhi. Photography: Piao Songri. Editing: Matthieu Laclau, Cai Yanshan. Music: Jin Wulin. Art direction: Lan Zhiqiang. Costumes: Hu Yunqiang. Styling: Chen Ziqing. Sound: Wu Jiang, Jiao Chuanglei. Action: Qiao Dalun. Visual effects: Li Gen, Liu Baojun. Executive direction: Wang Baohou.
Cast: Yu Hewei (Lian Jiahai), Gao Yuanyuan (Wang Xiuyi), Han Geng (Lv Xinkai), Zhang Tian’ai (Lian Jie), Qiao Shan (Wei Feng), Song Xiaobao (Hao Shunli), Xia Zhiguang (Wang Fang), Wu Jiakai (Lv Kuang), Xie Keyin (Ou Yangyang, Lv Kuang’s girlfriend), An Hanjin (Hao Shengli), Yang Jinrui (Lv Kuang, age seven), Sun Yue (Hao Shengli’s wife).
Premiere: Beijing Film Festival (Competition), 17 Apr 2026.
Release: China, 23 May 2026.