Dead Pigs (2018) User Reviews

Dead Pigs

[jackson_ro · 6/10 · 2 August 2020]

As a local Shanghainese, this film perhaps means a little more to me than others. Dead Pigs is more about the city than any characters, it is a biopsy on one of the fastest growing and changing cities in the World, and what it opens is a group of really interesting characters who represent each sectors of Shanghai society relatively well while also painting a picture of how the city affects these people both mentally and physically. Cathy Yan does a great job at constructing these societal issues into her film, but unfortunately while the formula is right, the ingredients feels forced. The biggest issue of all is the casting of Mason Lee who is very obviously an ABC and simply does not fit in the film. The film might work better for a Western oriented audience as it does feel disconnected from local culture (even though it does address societal issues very well, but feels very much through Western lenses), but at the same time Western audience would certainly have trouble understanding the nuisances which places the film in an awkward conundrum. Nevertheless, the film explores unique issues and documents a very unique period of city development of my hometown.

Local Hero

[Minnesota_Reid · 8/10 · 28 April 2018]

In 'Dead Pigs', we see a world where everyone is a liar and everything is faked and hyped. Everything that is real is dying off or being torn down, or at the least is undervalued. It's obviously a metaphor for modern Chinese society -- no, make that modern society in general. But the characters are vivid enough to ignore symbolism and enjoy the film at face value.

The only holdout is Candy Wang (played by Vivian Wu from 'The Joy Luck Club'), a cranky, shrill middle aged eccentric who is refusing to sell the family house to make way for a major new development.

We also follow a number of other characters, including the American architect for the development, who is portrayed in a surprisingly sympathetic light (even though he is as much of a fake as everyone else).

The only false note is a short stretch of sing-a-long karaoke. Maybe that is more meaningful to the Chinese audience. But overall, this is a good movie, well worth watching.

I love how real these characters feel, and Yan approaches them all with a warm yet honest empathy.

[mehobulls · 7/10 · 16 February 2021]

Little bit this, little bit that, this was a working script with all tragic-comic characters and events rolls on to growing upper capitalism in China. There's nothing new in this heart warming joint; gives you enjoyable watching. Could be bit shorter, bit less melo-dramatic

Pigs, pigs everywhere

[MarcoParzivalRocha · 7/10 · 25 March 2021]

A pig farmer, a beauty salon owner, a young waiter, a wealthy girl and an architect share adventures when thousands of dead pigs appear in Shanghai's central river. Based on true events (in 2013, 16,000 pigs were found in the Huangpu River, infected with PCV), this film marks the debut of Cathy Yan as a director, who 2 years later (2020), makes herself known to the western world with Birds of Prey. The characters are excellent examples of the personification of various problems in modern societies, such as the lack of empathy, ambition, fear of facing reality or the social economic gap between classes. There's a clear western view on the narrative, so that the public can identify itself with the story, but it is still a very interesting set of ideas, and a kind of wake-up call for the Chinese boom at a global level.

Better to cry in a Mercedes than to laugh on a bicycle?

[malte-neumann · 6/10 · 6 March 2021]

This is one of those movies dealing with the effects of capitalism, as if they were essentially some sort of a Chinese thing. There seems always money available to fund a movie that deals with commodification, estrangement and deracination, even exploration and criminality in China, an established relocation of Western middle class anxieties. Dead Pigs, as part of this agenda, is mostly watchable, with truly compelling cinematography and a splendid performance by Vivian Wu and Yang Haoyu. The screenplay nevertheless left me skeptical. There are some nice absurdities in it and there is a unsettling colonial vibe with some white models in a theme park housing complex. Nevertheless the main characters' background were unconvincingly cobbled together and the author doesn't seem to take their misery all too seriously. I had some issues with the gleefully soundtrack, a vexing contrast to the perceptive camera, underlining Yan's willingness to change instantly from depression to irony, culminating in the scene with the excavator with its surreal turn, after which the movie came to a conciliable, even optimistic end. But then during closing credits you see dead ducks floating in the river, accompanied by a bittersweet pop song, the very same the crowd chanted in front of the excevator, a last indication of the director's waywardness (I probably didn't get the symbolic message).

A satisfying satirical sectioning of society

[avinashb75 · 7/10 · 12 November 2019]

I watched this film on a transatlantic flight having never heard of it before and choosing solely based on having heard the director being in charge of the upcoming DCEU venture. Overall, it paints a satirical picture of Chinese society, though you can't help feeling that the generic nature of the stories comments on societal paradigms globally. Certainly, many of the situations, actions and reactions would be quite commonplace in India. The cinematography was so amazing I felt annoyed watching it on a small screen, and the over the top acting was befitting the satirical nature of the piece. The recurring motifs of contamination and destruction really hit home, while carefully not banging you over the head with their message. If you can seek it out, definitely worth a watch

Captivating

[bartlettejed · 10/10 · 15 February 2021]

Wow. This was a beautifully made film full of human warmth despite the cold bitter taste of capitalism permeating throughout. A scathing portrayal of the China's rapid development and how China's unquestioning embrace of capitalism forcably strips its citizens of a sense of home and belonging. Incredible to think that this was a directorial debut too. Loved it.

Gently down the stream...

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 7/10 · 8 September 2023]

Cathy Yan's debut feature 'Dead Pigs (2018)' was actually released after her sophomore effort 'Birds Of Prey (2020)' in most territories, a year after releasing in China after making its way around the festival circuit for the prior year. That means that most people, including myself, will have actually been introduced to the director by her much weaker and more obviously studio-dictated second effort, rather than via this impressive and somewhat idiosyncratic first effort that interweaves the lives of several people who are connected to and affected by the actions of a real estate corporation. Loosely based around a real incident in which thousands of dead pigs were found floating in the Huangpu River, the film satirises China's current socioeconomic state by weaving the crushingly familiar with the delicately absurd. In turns downbeat and funny, the narrative hops from character to character as it slowly unveils the ties that bind them all together. Though some are more tangentially linked than others, they all naturally flow into and out of each others' stories. Perhaps the heart of the picture is Vivian Wu's Candy Wang, a stubborn salon owner who insists on staying in the house she grew up in even as everything around her is torn down to make way for a garish new housing project. Her seemingly senseless stubbornness is, in many ways, the bedrock of the narrative, as it reverberates across each storyline and essentially perpetuates the struggles of the characters within them. The picture is occasionally a little slow and its overall length is perhaps a tad indulgent. Some of its quirkier elements also come close to feeling entirely out of place (even if they never quite do) and its theming is a little elusive, comprised of several vague threads that never quite form a complete whole. However, this is a generally enjoyable and well-made effort that gets more and more satisfying as its various plot lines begin to converge. It's a really solid debut that makes some bold choices and is all the better for it.

A multi-generational Chinese family struggles between tradition and modernity

[mephisto_chang · 10/10 · 9 June 2019]

Chinese-American director Cathy Yan's delightful, spiky, comic debut about overlapping lives and interlocking misfortunes in modern China.

In the Chinese zodiac, the happy-go-lucky pig stands for good fortune and wealth. So an inexplicable epidemic that decimates the porcine population in a developing part of China still heavily reliant on pig farming, could be symbolically as well as literally disastrous, and it provides Cathy Yan's sprawling, bouncing, jaunty debut with its darkest images.

When a flotilla of porcine carcasses bobbed through China's waterways in 2013, it demonstrated the country's modern dilemma: the difficulties of balancing traditional, rural ways with its ceaseless push towards the future. Taking inspiration from the headline-grabbing real-life events for her first feature, writer/director Cathy Yan ponders that juxtaposition through a quintet of Shanghai residents with interconnected lives. While the titular animals might not fly in the Sundance-bowing Dead Pigs, they certainly do drift through the lives of its searching, yearning characters.

Yan's DEAD PIGS is a portrait of humanity in a country that has adopted an attitude of modernizing at all costs. Full of dark images, but paired with a jaunty, delightful humor, DEAD PIGS veritably bounces in contrast to the social realism that has come to characterize popular arthouse in China today.

Why Does Zazie Beetz Get First Billing for This Here?

[derek-duerden · 7/10 · 1 February 2024]

As far as I can tell, she plays an inconsequential role, briefly shoehorned in and without much connection to the plot. Bizarre.

Anyway, as to the main core cast, there's quite a variety of mood and styles in this cautionary tale of ultra-capitalism; I suspect I was supposed to find more of it funny than I did (e.g. The father?) but Vivian Wu pulls it together as Candy with quite a nuanced performance in the (fairly ridiculous) circumstances. The young romance is OK also.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of the ending though - "loose ends" doesn't even begin to cover it!

Worth a look nevertheless.

Meh - a Bit Muddled

[pc95 · 6/10 · 4 December 2021]

Director Cathy Yan has gone for the multi-characters intersecting story - and like others have mentioned, some of the stories and characters are more interesting than others. The movie doesn't seem too focused and meanders for a chunk of the runtime. It's not a total bore. I liked the younger generational romance story, but its not enough to save the overall movie from a mixed reaction. The indebted father and his sister was fairly grating to watch even with bad luck and all. Give it a kind 6/10.

It's not a good movie

[fred-33517 · 2/10 · 5 April 2021]

I think it's just a movie to fool foreigners. Things never happen that way in China. Although the movie is based on some news but the reasons behind them in the movie are totally different as in reality. There were so many blood and tears with the news related and the director made them a comedy ending!

Old Story about the Haves and Have Nots

[Jimmy_JimJim · 6/10 · 13 April 2021]

There are many similar movies with almost identical storylines. This one uses Shanghai as backdrop, the other use cities like NY, LA, Paris, Berlin, Mumbai, Rio, Seoul.... If you have never been to China, this film showcases some of the absurdities there, which are actually quite ludicrous.

Pig Problems

[jeroduptown · 7/10 · 15 November 2021]

Dead Pigs is quirky and vibrant where the characters collide through their personal turmoils and as their city undergoes big changes. Crazy salon bird lady steals the show defending her house from developers.

Bad movie

[soylavica · 2/10 · 12 April 2021]

You can feel that the movie had good intentions, but it never reached them. Characters have no middle points, they are good or bad... the most "interesting" thing of the movie is how stories are connected ... and is not even original doing this. Many bad things to say about it, but as English is not my lenaquge, I am just going to say that you may invest your time in another film.

And sorry for this, but is a bad, very bad copy of Magnolia.

Sorry, barely watchable, another lukewarm failure

[housearrestedever · 4/10 · 14 February 2021]

I have tried my best to keep going, but after 30 minutes, I decided not to continue. When I turned my head to tell my wife that this movie actually quite sucked, she just said: "I thought your judgement about whether a movie is watchable or not all is better than me, yet you've struggled over 30 minutes to tell me you decided to give it up. You didn't even noticed that I've already stopped watching after about 10 minutes. Because I've already decided it's another boring movie." She made fun of me about my tardiness.

Anyway, I strongly recommend that Mason Lee, who played the son role in this movie, to give up the acting better sooner than later. He just got no talent at all. And he was one of the major negative reasons that we both decided he's the bomber. Also, the guy who played Sean Landry, better not to seek career in acting too.

The screenplay is too weak and too lack of energy to go on. There were so many unnecessary scenes that should be cut generously. They were so sporadically blend and uninteresting. It should be cut and shorten to 90 minutes or even more. The storyline, the scenarios, and the plots, simply not strong enough to keep it interested.

There were also so many unnecessary acting scenes with extreme exaggerations and dragged too long. The movie itself which decided to use the disastrous pig plague happened couple of years ago is something that the CCP government didn't like to mention about. Using it as the main background as the movie's subject could only dumped one or two pigs to make it look like.

This is a movie with weak directing, editing and acting. Very cliched and awfully boring. Another mediocre Chinese movie that flunk under 5-star score.