Winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize, Cathy Yan’s (Birds of Prey) dazzling debut feature weaves together multiple storylines inspired by real events into an epic, Altman-esque portrait of contemporary China. A mysterious stream of pig carcasses floats silently down the Huangpu River toward China’s populous economic hub, Shanghai. As authorities struggle to explain the phenomenon, a down-and-out pig farmer with a youthful heart struggles to make ends meet, while an upwardly mobile landowner fights gentrification against an American expat seeking a piece of the Chinese dream. Meanwhile, a romantic busboy hides his job from his father, while a rich young woman struggles to find her independence. Like a mosaic, their stories intersect and converge in a showdown between human and machine, past and future, brother and sister. Evoking Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite in its mixture of family drama, absurdist dark humor and cutting social satire, Dead Pigs is a timely tale of modern-day Shanghai that speaks to the universal need for connection.
Screening as part of Museum Films’ Spotlight on Chinese Cinema.
