Run time: 102 mins

Wei Shujun enriches the run-of-the-mill detective story with remarkable style in this scintillating Chinese neo-noir.

In a riverside town in rural China during the 1990s, Police Chief Ma Zhe is tasked with investigating the murder of an elderly woman. Although a suspect is soon apprehended, subtle clues lead Ma to probe further into the town’s hidden secrets and layers of social dysfunction, determined to uncover the full truth behind the crimes.

Shooting on aesthetically-perfect 16mm film, Wei increasingly blurs the line between the real and the imagined. Like the investigation itself, the meaning of Only the River Flows gradually finds its focus as the story progresses, leaving us staring into the same abyss the detective does. But the film ultimately lives and dies by its lead. Yilong Zhu gives a star-making performance, wandering through the frames in his leather coat smoking cigarettes like carbon monoxide is actually his oxygen, the trademark symbols of a weary cop who has worked too long and seen too much.

Involving, brilliantly visual and tantalisingly ambiguous, it’s a perfectly paced and compelling addition to the library of noir detective stories.