Tang Yi | 天下烏鴉(Tian xia wu ya) (All the Crows in the World) / 2021

 

heterosexual angst

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tang Yi (screenwrter and director) 天下烏鴉(Tian xia wu ya) (All the Crows in the World) / 2021 [14 minutes]

 

Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or award for Best Short Film, Hong Kong filmmaker Tang Yi’s slightly sleazy, absolutely delightful short All the Crows in the World enters into new sexual territory, wherein a young likely lesbian girl wriggles her way out of what amounts to a heterosexual outing.

     Two young school girls, 18-year-old Shengnan (Xuanyu Chen) and her friend are dinning at the favorite mainland China noodle shop, slurping up their sweet potato soup, when the shop owner suddenly heads upstairs to his bedroom with a neighbor woman. The two seemingly innocent girls, we suddenly perceive, are totally aware chicks who bet whether or not the owner will last 10 minutes; he doesn’t even come close, since he evidently refuses to pay for sex.

     Suddenly an intruder with a bull-horn appears to announce to Shengnan that her cousin (Shujun Huang) is back in town and that she is invited to a party “at the same place.”

      The mysterious party turns out to be something like a version of a sweet-sixteen party for Shengnan, but with far more serious consequences since she is surrounded at a table with a number of elderly, unattractive, rowdy, and randy businessmen whose purpose is to cruise the female offerings and engage in sex, Shengnan being proffered up by her older cousin as the newest tidbit.

       Ubiquarian reviewer Marina D. Richter expresses reactions similar to mine of the event:

 

“It’s a mildly put bizarre gathering at the restaurant we are witnessing together with Shengnan, but she is not the only odd one out. As the group of men gathered around a powerful alpha male Mr. Liu (Wu Ge) in the adult establishment clad as an eatery starts behaving like unleashed dogs, a middle-aged, balding guy Juanguo Wang (Baohe Xue) finds his unlikely soulmate in Shengnan, as forlorn in the atmosphere of horniness as her. They do have different reasons for wanting to get out of it, but their bond is instant.

     …The two new unlikely friends dance to the tunes of John Grant’s song “Disappointing” which is not the only music delight that delivers a comment on the story. There is a famous Chinese song Liu Yang written in the 1950s to praise the birthplace of the Chairman Mao Zedong which Shengnan ends up performing with her cousin to the lot before realizing where she is. The sheer paradox of celebrating the Communist leader while throwing money on booze, lavish food and under-aged prostitutes while toasting to business prosperity is a proper punch above the waistline. The presence of a Buddhist shaman at the said dinner is also hilarious, but less so as the lines he delivers: “The way of Heaven reduces surplus to make up for scarcity. The way of Man reduces surplus to make up for scarcity.” The Chairman Mao certainly wouldn’t approve.

     We can’t discern whether their leader Mr. Liu (Wu Ge) is more interested in linking her up with his not very bright son, particularly since she is proclaimed to be a brilliant student, or whether he is eyeing her for himself. But clearly, the “virgin, who nibbles as a rabbit,” is more luscious to their eyes than the delicious-looking cooked fish they pass around. But Shengnan immediately dispels any notions her cousin might have put into their heads, insisting that she has, in fact, had boyfriends previously, but found them to be bad for her grades—and besides, their sex life wasn’t that great!

      The men are all shocked and crestfallen, not knowing even what to say; but the Buddhist shaman speaks up, “As long as her horoscope fits we can borrow her luck,” presumably suggesting that she’s still in the sexual running. He concludes, “It doesn’t matter whether she’s a virgin or not.” They’re pleased with his pronouncement.    

    As Mr. Liu manhandles Ms. Tang, Shengnan’s cousin, he argues that they all should laugh, the men reacting immediately with hearty false laughs, Wang joining in at the last moment with clear hesitation. Liu immediately proposes a toast to prosperity, most of the others joining him, except Wang who proposes, almost out of desperation, to a “harmonious society,” to which Shengnan also toasts. 

      Outside the dining the room, the businessmen consort with “cuties” from all over the world, smiling and bowing to their “daddies.”

      And it is at this moment that Liu goes to the stage, puts his arms around one of the “cuties,” Ms. Tang saying that he is one of the luckiest men in the world, setting off a bark, imitated by his cronies suggesting their animalistic natures, the whole affair turning momentarily into what appears to be an orgy.

      Shengnan and Wang run off together, outcasts from the heterosexual world they have been forced to deal with. Before they leave, however, Wang sprouts wings and together they dance to gay artist Grant’s “Disappointing.” Soon after, Wang suggests that he will show his new friend some fun, as they run up to a car in the parking lot, wherein presumably one of the businessmen is having sex with one of the “cuties,” to shine a flashlight into it and yell police, screaming “All heterosexuals must die!” as they race off.

     Back at the soup stand Wang and Shengnan are joined by her friend. A moment later, however, another younger man walks by and looks back at the group, Wang turning, standing, and walking off. The two men meet up and seemingly in a ritual bowing affair, get the smell of one another before holding hands and walking off, Shengnan taking out her stopwatch, presumably, to bet how short or long their relationship will last.

    The comic shifts in the dominance of gender and sexual identity certainly might confuse many viewers, but make it for others a pure delight.

 

Los Angeles, April 23, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).