Sixth Generation Chinese director Lou Ye has reached the stage of his career where the larger creative impulses of his filmography have begun to distill themselves. One in particular, is his penchant for temporally disjunctive narratives, which frequently jump space and place with little warning and/or reason. What usually follows is a puzzle like narrative structure, but the puzzle of Saturday Fiction, his latest, may ultimately prove too dense to properly solve.
With Saturday Fiction, Lou returns to the time period of previous work such as Purple Butterfly; that being of China during the Sino-Japanese War. Specifically, this film occurs several days before December 7th, 1941, a day that will live in infamy. Gong Li stars as acclaimed actress Jean Yu, who heads to the espionage hotbed of Shanghai under the guise of appearing in a theatre production (titled Saturday Fiction). She can trust no one, as everyone seemingly has their own hidden agenda while the world around them moves progressively closer to the brink.
Ultimately, the trademark disjunctive style does not make for a good match with an espionage thriller, as the twists and turns are provided in piecemeal form, as if being delivered via dial-up. Zeng Jian’s handheld camera work is deliriously shaky, and does not adequately guide the viewers focus. Gong provides a strong performance, but she alone cannot drag this out of its slow procession towards a day that will live in infamy built almost entirely upon some strange contrivances.
- Release Date: 9/5/2019
