Wisdom Tooth

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Wisdom Tooth
Mainland China | 2019 | 104’ | DCP | Colour | Chinese | Group: B
Director: Liang Ming

Recipient of two prestigious awards – jury prize and best director – at the recent Pingyao International Film Festival, Wisdom Tooth is the fascinating and assured debut feature of Liang Ming, a well-known actor, who has starred in, among others, Lou Ye’s Spring Fever. The film positions coming of age between innocence and cruelty, and translates the chaos and turmoil of sentiments, peculiar to youth, into suggestive images of great visual power. The script draws strength from original story ideas and the juxtaposition of dreamlike, oneiric moments with rude awakenings, while Liang’s experience as an actor guides the performance of the film’s young protagonists – and especially of Lv Xingcheng in the role Gu Xi – to convincing results. Somehow reminiscent of Burning by South Korean master Lee Chang- dong and ofThe Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci, for its treatment of an ever shifting ménage à trois, Wisdom Tooth is definitely the work of a new talent to watch.

Gu Xi is about to lose her job because of undocumented citizenship status. While making use of all her social connections in her effort to get official registration papers, she also faces another challenge: getting along with her brother’s new girlfriend, Qingchang. As winter sets in and temperatures plunge, the relationship between Gu Xi, her brother Gu Liang, and his girlfriend becomes increasingly unclear, threatening to freeze over itself. Meanwhile, more trouble brews as a dead body is found floating in the sea, and a mysterious tape forces Gu Xi to cross from the boundary from youth into adulthood.

Trained as an actor at Communication University of China, Liang Ming starred in several award-winning films including Lou Ye’s Spring Fever (2009) and Shadow Days (2014). He later turned his interests to directing, and worked as an assistant director on Lou Ye’s Mystery (2012). Wisdom Tooth is Liang Ming’s directorial debut, and premiered at the Pingyao International Film Festival In October. The film won both Fei Mu Award for Best Director (Chinese-language Competition) and Roberto Rossellini Award for Jury Award (International Competition).