Girl on Edge
花漾少女杀人事件
China, 2025, colour, 2.35:1, 108 mins.
Director: Zhou Jinghao 周璟豪.
Rating: 8/10.
Offbeat psychodrama set against the world of women’s figure-skating is cleverly written and features three fine lead performances.
STORY
Harbin city, northeast China, the present day, winter. Two young women are practising one night in the deserted Huayang Figure Skating Centre 花漾训练基地. Suddenly, one slashes the other in the neck and kills her. Three weeks earlier, Jiang Ning (Zhang Zifeng), 18, is practising under her trainer Wang Shuang (Ma Yili), though the latter virtually ignores her as she repeatedly falls over when attempting a triple Axel. Ma Shuang is more interested in training local star Jason (Yu Zhile), who is there with his over-protective mother (Fan Junhui). Jiang Ning finally confronts her trainer, who is also her mother, a onetime potential national champion who gave up her career when she became pregnant with Jiang Ning and has since raised her as a single mother. When angry, Wang Suang still blames Jiang Ning for ruining her skating career. Later, she buys her daughter a new costume for a forthcoming competition and grudgingly agrees to a solo training session. Jiang Ning still keeps falling and Wang Shuang tells her there’s nothing more she can teach her to help her. The session ends in a big row between the two; but after Wang Shuang has (seemingly) left, Jiang Ning performs her triple Axels perfectly. As she’s leaving the rink, Jiang Ning watches a maintenance worker confidently skating on her own; the two chat and the girl, Zhong Ling (Ding Xiangyuan), says she trained when she was younger but now has to earn a living as she has no one to look after her. On the way home, Wang Shuang tells Jiang Ning that Jason is not well and has to go to Singapore, adding wryly that she still has Jiang Ning left to train. Sometime later, at the Asian Championships in Seoul, Jiang Ning keeps falling during her jumps and cuts her leg on one. She suspects another skater of tampering with her skates but the girl plausiblu denies it, telling Jiang Ning to stop thinking everyone is her enemy. Back in China, Wang Shuang discovers that Jason hasn’t gone to Singapore and his mother has changed trainers. Jiang Ning discovers Zhong Ling has been sacked for using the rink during working hours. She bumps into Zhong Ling when the latter drops by to pick up her stuff, and the two start chatting again. Zhong Ling takes her to a public roller-skating party in a deserted mall, where Jiang Ning almost gets off with a pushy young man, Lu Jie (Li Xiaoqian). Later, at the rink, Jiang Ning finds her skates have disappeared – borrowed by Zhong Ling, who is skating there at the invitation of Wang Shuang, who thinks the girl is highly talented and free of her daughter’s hang-ups. When Wang Shuang formally invites Zhong Ling to train under her, Jiang Ning trains harder and better than ever – maybe because she now has a rival, Wang Shuang tells her. Mother and daughter become close, and Zhong Ling mysteriously disappears. Then, out of the blue one night, Zhong Ling phones Jiang Nan and invites her to a drinking session at a bar, where Lu Jie happens to be. The two girls argue, with Zhong Ling telling Jiang Ning she can beat her anytime and Jiang Ning saying her mother just used Zhong Ling to push her harder. In the street Lu Jie attacks Jiang Ning but Zhong Ling comes to her rescue. Jiang Ning invites Zhong Ling back to her home to sleep over. But early next morning, as Zhong Ling is leaving, she bumps into Wang Shuang, who reawakens the girl’s love of skating and her competitive spirit.
REVIEW
Mainland writer-director Zhou Jinghao 周璟豪 makes an impressive feature debut with Girl on Edge 花漾少女杀人事件, an offbeat psychodrama set against the world of figure skating that starts with a waah! moment and then backtracks three weeks to show how the plot got there. Dealing your strongest card at the start is a risky approach to what is basically an elaborate whydunit; but as a writer Zhou weaves a sufficiently noirish web to hold the attention, with some clever misdirection of the audience and a very strong trio of lead performances. Premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section of this year’s Cannes festival, it was released two months later in the Mainland to, alas, a deafening thud, taking a weedy RMB29 million.
Born in Yancheng city, north of Shanghai, Zhou came late to film-making, initially winning a scholarship to Harvard University (where he studied computer science and political science) and then working as a computer programmer in Silicon Valley, California. His first directing experience was through the First Film Festival’s Training Camp, as one of seven first-timers each making a short on an aspect of life during Covid; supervised by director Cao Baoping 曹保平, it was shown at the Xining-based festival under the title Isolated Island 孤岛 in 2020. Following that, Zhou made the short Lausanne 洛桑 (2021), on which the creative producer 监制 was Taiwan-born Chen Zhengdao 陈正道 [Leste Chen], 44, who’s worked extensively in the Mainland; on Girl on Edge, Chen was also creative producer, along with actress Ma Yili 马伊琍, 49, who has a leading role in the film.
Actress Zhang Zifeng 张子枫 may not be everyone’s cup of tea but in the right roles – such as How Are You 李梅和韩梅梅 昨日重现 (2017) or Go Brother 快把我哥带走 (2018) – the diminutive, baby-faced, former child actress can be a sparky instead of an expressionless presence. She graduated with style into more adult roles with the surprise hit Sister 我的姐姐 (2021) and here, though playing an 18-year-old at the ripe old age of 24, she’s perfectly cast as an obsessive young figure skater who feels sidelined by her trainer mother when the latter spots a talented newcomer. From the opening sequence where Jiang Ning (Zhang) murders another girl who’s training late on the same rink, Zhou makes the most of the actress’ dark looks and passive aggressiveness – sometimes not so passive when she and mum have screaming rows and the latter blames her for ruining her own career as a skater when she became pregnant.
One of the script’s several offbeat touches is that the flame-haired Zhong Ling, the skater to whom the mother shifts her attention, is a slightly trashy but inwardly confident young woman who’s apparently parentless, takes odd jobs to survive and can hold her own in the outside world. As played by real-life skater Ding Xiangyuan 丁湘源, 17, in her acting debut, Zhong Ling appears in every way to be psychologically more mature than the paranoid Jiang Ning, who’s totally dependant on her single-parent mother and is now negotiating the difficult transition from a promising child skater to an adult one. Between the two girls is Jiang Ning’s mother/trainer, expertly played by Ma (so good as the nanny in Lost, Found 找到你, 2018), who diabolically juggles her daughter’s emotions and uses Zhong Ling to achieve her own dream of creating a champion. In several respects, Ma’s role, always underplayed by the Shanghai-born actress, is the central one in the whole film.
Amidst all this, the relationship between the two teenage girls also blows hot and cold – from suspicion to enmity via a wary rivalry and kind of friendship – but all the time typically intense and fragile. This is interesting (and well acted) enough to sustain the film’s central section, and makes the ground-shifting revelation in the third act (starting around the 80-minute mark) all the more powerful. It may be a tad unbelievable for literal-minded viewers, but Zhou brings it off with thoroughly cinematic bravura.
Set in wintry Harbin city, northeast China, the film has a chilly look that’s noirish but not overdone by Taiwan d.p. Yu Jingping 余静萍, who’s no stranger to dramas with strong female characters (Zinnia Flower 百日告别, 2015; SoulMate 七月与安生, 2016; Better Days 少年的你, 2019; Song of Spring 妈妈！, 2022; Reversed Destiny 沙漏, 2024). The whole world of women’s figure skating is convincingly drawn on a small scale, as well as the slightly mystical connection between humans and ice. Technical credits are all fine, but what raises the movie to another level are the brilliant visual effects that, in the case of Zhang, seamlessly blend her face, body and skating doubles into one believable figure skater.
The film was shot in and around Harbin and Qiqihar, both in Heilongjiang province, northeast China.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Colorful Enlight (Yangzhou) Pictures (CN). Produced by Colorful Enlight (Yangzhou) Pictures (CN), Guliguo (Xiamen) Pictures.
Script: Zhou Jinghao. Photography: Yu Jingping. Editing: Zhou Jinghao, Qi Xiaodong. Music: Shen Bi’ang. Art direction: Yu Jiarui. Costumes: Yan Meizhu. Styling: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Zhao Nan, Yang Jiang, He Wei. Action: Luo Yimin [Norman Law]. Visual effects: Zhang Long, Chen Wende, Chen Jianwei (More VFX). Skating direction: Li Ge. Executive direction: Liu Yiqiao, Zhuang Ran.
Cast: Zhang Zifeng (Jiang Ning), Ding Xiangyuan (Zhong Ling), Ma Yili (Wang Shuang), Li Xiaoqian (Lu Jie), Du Luotong (Jessica), Chen Xuan (Michelle), Yu Zhile (Jason), Fan Junhui (Jason’s mother), Li Boxuan (costume designer), Shang Lin (ice-rink manager), Li Ziye (Jiang Ning’s skating double), Zhang Kexin (Jiang Ning’s jump double), Jin Guanru (Zhong Ling’s jump double), Wang Zixuan (Wang Shuang’s skating double).
Premiere: Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight), 19 May 2025.
Release: China, 18 Jul 2025.