In the suburbs of a northern Chinese city undergoing urbanization, a quirky girl who wants to see animals in the zoo is taken for a ride which will forever change her perspective on life.
Director's Statement While preparing for my feature film, I read a news article about a couple’s shady business in a Northern Chinese town. I felt an immediate sense of absurdity which I could not shake off. But I didn’t want to simply tell the story as it was in the news. One day, an image popped up in my head: a little girl staring at the deadpan, dull, wrinkly and sagging face of a hippopotamus. Then the hippo opens its mouth, revealing strong, dangerous teeth. The girl wonders whether it’s going to eat her, or is it yawning. I see a curious gaze trying to penetrate the deceivingly docile look of reality - a reality kept obscure by the parents. The antitheses between the real and the absurd, the innocent and the obscene, the elegance of high art and the ugliness of the transaction, inspires me to approach this story about lost innocence with a darkly humorous tone. Choosing a little girl as protagonist allows me to keep a distance from the original case while plunging into the real horror of it: not what is happening now, but what could happen in the future.
