The Wild Goose Lake (2019)

Diao Yinan follows up his Berlin Golden Bear win for Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014) with this stylish neo-noir thriller set in the remote fictional town of Wild Goose Lake. Zhou is a gangster, on the run from both his fellow mobsters and the police. We learn exactly why through lengthy flashback sequences that make up the bulk of the film after Zhou retells his story to a mysterious woman who has been apparently been sent to retrieve him by his once allies. Her exact motives remain unclear throughout, giving a terrific air of minimalistic tension to proceedings, as we also follow the story through the eyes of the gangsters and the police as the hunt for Zhou becomes a full-blown manhunt. There are some excellent set pieces, especially an early ‘competition’ between two opposing sets of the same gang to settle a score that was initiated from a bout of shocking violence during a supposedly peaceful meeting. The sheen is Nicolas Winding Refn-esque in its neon colour palette as well as its brutal violence, and interestingly enough the Refn film I found this one reminding me of the most was Only God Forgives (2013), a film that I didn’t have a particular amount of love for. The Wild Goose Lake is a more interesting and cohesive outing than Only God Forgives, although it does perhaps lack some of the intrigue of Refn’s film. For the most part, Yinan marks himself out as a director of real talent; and that’s on top of his already prolific acting career. He played a central role in Zhangke Jia’s Ash Is Purest White, one of the best films of 2018, as well as being one of the best crime thrillers of recent years. The Wild Goose Lake owes a debt to that film, and although it never hits the heights of Jia’s masterpiece, Yinan does a great job of stamping his name onto the genre. 7.1/10