I am a sucker for movies which involve the leads wandering around a city at night instead of sleeping together. The trouble that the concept is easy but making it interesting is tough. The leads must be personable enough and the obstacles in their way must be intriguing enough that we don’t mind not getting to see them do that one thing. In the case of Zi, it is incredibly clear that writer-director Kogonada, whose previous film was the big-budget bomb A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, rebelled against that movie’s big requirements by making this movie out of nothing more than that concept. The sad trouble with Zi is that its concept is all it has.
Zi (Michelle Mao) is a violinist, famous enough that street buskers recognise her instantly, who as the movie opens is seen sharing a potential negative health diagnosis with her unsympathetic manager. Rather than going home to talk to him, or indeed anyone, she begins wandering Hong Kong, and finally finds a quiet staircase under a large tree for a good cry. The pity party is interrupted by Elle (Haley Lu Richardson), a chatty American with nothing better to do than involve herself in Zi’s life. Zi of course needs the distraction, so is happy for Elle to gabble away as they spend the afternoon walking around and observing thing. Eventually they end up outside the apartment of a friend of Elle’s named Min (Jin Ha), who Elle insists will be able to help Zi get some answers for her problem. Of course it’s not as straightforward as that, and eventually the three of them are back to roaming the streets of Hong Kong late at night, eating noodles in the night market, singing karaoke, and having portentous conversations about everyone’s feelings for everybody.
The main joy here is the street shooting entirely on location across Hong Kong, and getting to observe what we might see should we get lost in Hong Kong ourselves right now is the major part of Zi’s charm. Unfortunately nothing in the plot’s machinations comes close to being half as interesting. The stories Min tells about his lonely childhood in English boarding schools, deliberately separated from his parents by their choice, have a raw and fascinating sting, but the connections between Zi and Min are entirely forced, wholly unbelievable and also pretty dumb. This could possibly be because Ms. Mao, who was clearly hired for her musical abilities instead of her acting, can’t quite pull off the nuances necessary to make her situation even half believable. The scene of her violin playing is quite wonderful at least. Ms. Richardson is herself a radiant acting talent, but she tries so hard to compensate that Elle quickly becomes annoying instead of entrancing and stays that way.
This is exactly the kind of movie festivals such as Sundance are thrilled to support, and Zi will undoubtedly be pawed over by overawed film students committed to finding sense where there is none. Instead you’d be better served by muting the sound and letting Benjamin Loeb’s smeary cinematography speak for itself, showing us a city that’s something like a dream.
Zi recently played at the Sundance Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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