as he listens to a cassette found at the crime scene to try to locate a woman heard on it or questions a hairdresser (Wang Jianyu) who seems eager to be apprehended. But “Only the River Flows ...

A mysterious, unique film-noir throwback with some intriguing meta scenes within it. "Equal parts atmospheric tour-de-force and beguiling puzzler, Only the River Flows is a masterfully styled ode ...

One of the most fascinating aspects of Wei Shujun’s film Only the River Flows is the continuing contrast between ... throws a handful of the remaining pieces down the toilet. A few scenes later he is ...

Ma is one of those leather-jacketed, nonchalant types who chain-smokes his way through every scene, even smoking while he eats – and he eats a lot, seeming to pour more energy into his noodles than ...

Thank you for your service, Death in Paradise. There is not much cosy crime to be found in Only the River Flows, a murder mystery that unfolds in southern China, but it is a very beguiling experience.

Sometimes who killed whom is beside the point. As it is in “Only the River Flows,” a stylish, introspective, eventually frustrating Chinese procedural directed by Wei Shujun. Based on a book ...

Fittingly, as pure cinema, Only The River Flows is a knockout: eerie and dreamlike. An overture of kids at play is a marvel. Another scene is a dead ringer for gaudy maestro Brian De Palma.

In common with Jia Zhangke’s nostalgic yearning for older, sturdier communism, Only the River Flows is set in the early 1990s, when older values and analogue tech continue to shape society and a ...

It’s Jiangdong province, 1995. An elderly lady has been found brutally murdered on the banks of a small town’s slow-moving river. Detective Ma (Yilong Zhu) and his willing but gormless ...