Only the Riv­er Flows review – a spell­bind­ing nightmare

Already on his third fea­ture since his first in 2020, direc­tor Wei Shu­jun is one of the most com­pelling Chi­nese film­mak­ers to emerge in recent years, though his lat­est film, Only the Riv­er Flows, already presents a dis­tinct depar­ture from what pre­ced­ed it – at least on the sur­face. Strid­ing Into the Wind and Rip­ples of Life are both dra­mas con­cerned with film crews strug­gling to get movies fin­ished. As such, a mur­der mys­tery thriller could seem like a cal­cu­lat­ed play for more main­stream recog­ni­tion. Yet this com­plex, riv­et­ing detec­tive tale is far from a pre­dictable noir riff, and ends up being just as pre­oc­cu­pied with the frus­tra­tion and puz­zling dis­trac­tions inher­ent to wrap­ping up any project in a time­ly fashion.

Supe­ri­ors don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly want a per­fec­tion­ist to address every nag­ging doubt or loose end. They just want a suc­cinct answer that requires the least expen­di­ture of resources, one that con­firms the workforce’s abil­i­ty to deliv­er some­thing that a major­i­ty of the pop­u­lace can find sat­is­fy­ing. Deter­min­ing who has killed some­one and why isn’t a cre­ative process, but it is a form of storytelling.

Adapt­ed from Yu Hua’s novel­la ​‘Mis­takes by the Riv­er’, the film is set in a rur­al Chi­nese town in the mid-1990s. When an old woman’s body is found by the riv­er, respect­ed detec­tive (and expec­tant father) Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) is assigned to lead the inves­ti­ga­tion, oper­at­ing out of a recent­ly closed cin­e­ma the chief of police wants to per­ma­nent­ly acquire. The case seems straight­for­ward: every­one sus­pects the victim’s adult ward, who has implied dis­abil­i­ties and is referred to as ​“the madman”.

An arrest of the easy scape­goat is made after the mur­der weapon is found, but var­i­ous clues and miss­ing links cap­ti­vate Ma. When he thinks that per­haps the police have rushed to their con­clu­sion, he’s explic­it­ly instruct­ed by his boss to hur­ry up with sign­ing of the paper­work and move on, for the sake of PR. But in fight­ing back against too neat expla­na­tions, Ma’s inquiries and inter­ro­ga­tions – which take him beyond the town’s bor­ders – not only com­pli­cate his assign­ment but seem to trig­ger addi­tion­al tragedies, by expos­ing tan­gen­tial­ly-con­nect­ed people’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, some relat­ed to soci­etal prej­u­dices. Wit­ness­es and inter­vie­wees start drop­ping dead, through both fur­ther mur­ders and appar­ent sui­cide. And an eth­i­cal cri­sis con­cern­ing his unborn child’s health prospects only exac­er­bates Ma’s increas­ing­ly frag­ile men­tal state.

A rar­i­ty for mod­ern Chi­nese cin­e­ma in being shot on film, Only the Riv­er Flows looks and feels like a ​’90s arte­fact rather than just a fine­ly detailed peri­od piece, its spe­cif­ic mut­ed visu­al palette recall­ing sev­er­al Chi­nese-lan­guage mile­stones from the decade – else­where, select sound­scapes used curi­ous­ly recall Howard Shore’s score for David Cronenberg’s Crash. Kore­an direc­tor Bong Joon Ho’s lat­er Mem­o­ries of Mur­der is an obvi­ous com­par­i­son point, for its sim­i­lar mix of incom­plete mys­ter­ies and prob­ing of insti­tu­tion­al mech­a­nisms. But Wei main­tains a high­ly indi­vid­ual, slip­pery and fas­ci­nat­ing artis­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty all his own.

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