Girls on Wire

Even with the presence of an underground heroin den, the most intriguing setting in Vivian Qu’s Girls on Wire is a sprawling film studio, where reality and performance blur but never quite merge narratively into a film-within-a-film. Instead, the cool-toned, behind-the-scenes set-up is where the film’s protagonist, Fang Di (Wen Qi), a young stunt double in a ninja movie, belongs. Her remarkable physical capacity – leaping from great heights and out of lakes with the eponymous wires – channels her inner resilience. Her past catches up with her when her estranged cousin, Tian Tian (Liu Haocun), escapes a heroin den in their hometown and seeks her help. Their connection is complicated as a result of entrenched family dynamics: Fang Di’s mother, the elder sister of Tian Tian’s layabout father, has always put his well-being above that of her own family. Fang Di has grown up in the shadow of this sacrifice, determined not to repeat the pattern.

Wen Qi delivers a steady, capturing Fang Di’s quiet resilience even when the script forces her into more theatrical moments. On the other hand, Liu is less successful as Tian Tian. Instead of portraying a young woman hardened, broken, or disillusioned by trauma, she plays the former addict with wide-eyed bewilderment, making her plight feel oddly weightless.

Their relationship is complex, never succumbing to easy sentimentality, which is one of the film’s greatest strengths. However, Qu leans too heavily into melodrama, and the script rarely trusts its actors to convey their emotions through subtler forms, instead relying on heavy-handed dialogue.

In the end, Girls on Wire feels like a missed opportunity. While the dynamic between Fang Di and Tian Tian promises potential, and the sprawling studio serves as a sharp metaphor for the literal and symbolic wires that bind them, the film never quite manages to tie its themes together, getting tangled in its own excess.

Christina Yang

Girls on Wire does not have a release date yet.

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