Dead Pigs, 2018(Film still)
As Cathy Yan’s first feature film is released on MUBI, the director speaks to Kat Haylett about making and meaning of the movie
February 10, 2021
In the spring of 2013, over 16,000 dead pigs were found floating in the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Quickly, this became a national – and then global – news story due to the bizarre nature of the incident – which was attributed to the growing reluctance of farmers to cover the rising cost of burying livestock. A few years later, this strange event served as the basis for director Cathy Yan’s first feature film,
Dead Pigs (released on MUBI on 12 February). It sets the tone for a story that has many surreal and darkly humorous elements, which Yan thinks “feel real to life – that we always find humour even in the darkest moments.”
Dead Pigs review – winding tale of life in cash-crazed Shanghai Peter Bradshaw
A breezily westernised style of Chinese movie is on offer in this 2018 debut feature from Chinese-American film-maker Cathy Yan, who two years later went to Hollywood to direct Birds of Prey, starring Margot Robbie. Dead Pigs is an ensemble dramedy set in Shanghai that satirises – in a distinctly lenient way – the commercialism eating away at China’s heart. It is inspired by a real-life incident in which thousands of dead pigs were found in the city’s Huangpu river, dumped by poverty-stricken farmers who couldn’t pay the disposal fees; the pig symbolism reminded me a tiny bit of Alan Bennett’s A Private Function.
12 Feb 2021
Last year, everybody wanted to know who Cathy Yan was. The DC Extended Universe had just been given a gutsy makeover with Harley Quinn’s solo outing
Birds Of Prey, and Yan was the director to thank. She had made just one feature before a fizzy social satire called
Dead Pigs. Those lucky enough to catch the film at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where it premiered before being released in China wouldn’t have been surprised by the high-octane success of
Birds Of Prey. But for the rest of us? Watching
Dead Pigs in 2021, thanks to a belated streaming release, feels like travelling back to the future: this story is new, but we already know how good Yan’s own journey continues to be.
Most American audiences know Cathy Yan for having directed last year s anarchic supervillain(ess) caper
Birds of Prey, but now they ll finally have a chance to catch up on her work leading up to Harley Quinn s fantabulous emancipation. The filmmaker s debut feature
Dead Pigs, which premiered at Sundance in 2018 (where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting), gets its global release on Friday, and EW can exclusively reveal the darkly funny indie s trailer, above. It feels a little bit like going back to my roots and going home, to be talking about Dead Pigs again, three years after its festival premiere, Yan tells EW. I am deeply proud of the film. It feels good to finally get it out there, and hopefully, it doesn t feet dated at all. I don t
Hand extreme sports challenger cracks puzzles with blazing speed By Xin Wen in Xi an | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-01-24 16:44 Share CLOSE
Xia Yan, 28, a hand extreme sports challenger in Xi an, capital of Northwest China s Shaanxi province, holds eight Guinness World Records, including solving a Rubik s cube within 20 seconds and cracking Klotski, a sliding block puzzle, in less than 10 seconds. Practicing hundreds of times made my playing skilled, said Xia, who began to practice with a Rubik s cube, a 3D combination puzzle also called the magic cube, when he was 16 years old.
He spent six years going from a rookie to a professional player solving the multicolored, cube-shaped puzzle. His speed at cracking a Rubik s cube also improved from several minutes to one minute, and then from one minute to 40 seconds.