The Breaking Ice

Panorama

"Singaporean director Anthony Chen has developed a signature style. It is a graceful, lucid classicism"

Variety
  • Archive - Festival 39
  • Director: Anthony Chen
  • China 2023
  • 97 minutes
  • Mandarin
  • Subtitles in Hebrew, English

In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.

Singaporean film-maker Anthony Chen brings warmth, sympathy and directness to this intimate drama, a subtle tribute to the French nouvelle vague – especially François Truffaut's Jules et Jim and Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part.

Filmography: Drift (2023), Wet Season, (2019), Ilo Ilo (2013).

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  • Director Anthony Chen
  • Production Meng Xie, Anthony Chen
  • Script Anthony Chen
  • Cinematography Yu Jing-Pin
  • Editing Hoping Chen, Soo Mun Thye
  • Music Kin Leonn
  • Festivals Cannes, Melbourne
  • Actors Zhou Dongyu, Liu Haoran, Qu Chuxiao
  • Source Rediance