Foreign films often expose us to new and interesting cultures from around the world, opening a window onto what are sometimes vastly different ways of life. Other times though, as with Anthony Chen’s Breaking the Ice, they can reveal that we are all far more alike than we might think.
Li Haofeng (Haoran Liu) is attending the wedding of a classmate in the Chinese city of Yanji, near the country’s border with North Korea. While his old friends are celebrating, he can’t help feeling detached from his surroundings and excuses himself early on. The following day, he gets on a tour bus that shuttles visitors between the various cultural sights related to the city’s Korean community, where he meets guide Nana (Dongyu Zhou). When his phone is lost on the trip, she takes pity on him and gets him to join her and her friend Han Xiao (Chuxiao Qu) for a night on the town.
Despite his quiet and reserved nature, Nana and Han manage to break Li out of his shell, possibly because they all see something relatable in each other or possibly because they have consumed too much alcohol. The next day Li misses his flight back to Shanghai and Nana and Han convince him to stay a few more days, continuing to show him around their city and growing closer to one another.
This lovely and sedate film can serve as a travel guide for the city of Yanji and the surrounding region as it is all lovingly displayed via Yu Jing-pin’s beautiful cinematography. What Chen is really aiming for though seems to be a meditation on loneliness and disappointment in the false promises of modern life, something that many will be able to relate to regardless of the country they call home. While Li is the most obviously depressed of the trio, even exhibiting some suicidal behavior, Nana and Han are both also suffering inside and feeling adrift in their lives. Liu, Zhou, and Qu all give subtle and superb performances, making the characters’ hunt for human connection completely believable.
The pacing will likely be too slow for some, but for those that don’t mind it, The Breaking Ice is a lovely and sweet little film that will leave audiences with an oddly pleasant mix of melancholy and hope while reminding them that no matter our differences, deep down we all share many of the same struggles and yearn for the same things. ★★★★
not rated. contains some sexuality, brief strong language, and smoking.
★★★★★ = Excellent | ★★★★ = Very Good | ★★★ = Good | ★★ = Fair | ★ = Poor
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