After a fast turn on the night road, cabbie Wu Tao drives right into the Yangtze River and apparently drowns, though his body is nowhere to be found. His passenger, club hostess Su Dan, is left with a severely fractured leg. Unable to pay mounting hospital bills but determined to take responsibility, Wu Tao’s wife Li decides to take in Su Dan, and care for her during recuperation. Though Li’s angsty teenaged son Xiao Chuan is initially less than thrilled with the loud and demanding guest, some odd semblance of normalcy settles while relationships change; Li befriends a younger man, and Xiao Chuan falls for the older Su Dan. But as the days pass in that hot and cramped flat, the ambiguous connections and unspoken tensions among the increasingly infatuated Xiao Chuan and the mutually weary Su Dan and Li begin to drive lives in unexpected directions, and hearts to unanswered questions. Spring Subway and Curiosity Kills the Cat director Zhang Yibai helms the intriguingly titled and even more intriguingly told Mainland Chinese drama Lost, Indulgence. Set amid the rapid industrialization and hellfire heat of Chongqing, the film stars Eric Tsang, Eason Chan, Karen Mok, and Karen Mok’s legs, as well as Mainland actress Jiang Wenli and newcomer Tan Jianci. Though framed by a plot puzzle that pushes and pulls from all directions, Lost, Indulgence maintains a solid, subtle, and engaging narrative core revolving around the emergent relationships and identities of each character. Jiang Wenli and Karen Mok, in particular, delivering outstanding performances as two very different women who may share more than they say. Indeed, Lost, Indulgence is the rare film in which what is not revealed is as, and perhaps more, important than what is.
Directed by Yibai Zhang | Starring : Karen Mok, Wenli Jiang, Eric Tsang, Eason Chan, Bowen Duan | Presented at Tribeca Film Festival
Chinese Cinema 