Vivian Qu Returns with Tangled Trauma

In her two previous films, Chinese filmmaker Vivian Qu‘s obvious interest in surveillance has driven her narratives. In her debut feature “Trap Street,” CCTV is both a help and a hindrance; while sophomore feature “Angels Wear White” hinges on the power of a well-timed recording. If you can put it on tape, Qu’s films argue, maybe you can understand a little better. You can at least watch it again, perhaps with fresh eyes, fresh perspective.

Qu’s third film, Berlin premiere “Girls on Wire,” is less obsessed with literal surveillance tape, but the filmmaker’s compulsions toward the power of the screen remain, even if they take a different shape. Granted, we don’t get to the screen for a while, instead opening in a dank, dismal cave where one of our two leading ladies has been trapped in a drug-induced hell. Soon, however, the quick-witted Tian Tian (Lia Haocun) has freed herself, alighting for the one place she thinks might house the only person left who loves her.

Fittingly for Qu’s interests, that place is Xiangshan Film City (more formally known as Xiangshan Global Studios), a massive film studio (and tourist attraction) that can house dozens of productions at a time. And, somewhere on that lot, Tian Tian believes her estranged and beloved cousin Fang Di (Wen Qui, who previously starred in Qi’s “Angels Wear White” when she was just 14, at the time, she was billed as Vicky Chen) is working as a low level stuntperson. With nothing left to do and nowhere else to turn, Tian Tian ventures to the lot, hoping she can not only find Fang Di, but draft her into helping Tian Tian escape the very dangerous, very angry mob bosses who were holding her in that cave to begin with.

Two wily cousins take on the mob while also running around a giant film set? What could be better? And yet, “Girls on Wire,” which Qu also wrote, is often less compelled by the ingenuity of its set-up than the circumstances that got Tian Tian and Fang Di there in the first place. Over the course of the film’s nearly two-hour running time, Qu flips between time and place, using flashbacks to help illustrate both the cousins’ intense bond and the ways in which the rest of their seemingly doomed family helped break them apart five years ago.

Those unfolding flashbacks tend to dilute much of the film’s energy, essentially throwing up giant “STOP” signs the second things really get going, and pausing to toss us back into the pair’s increasingly fucked up childhood in Chongqing. While they do add emotion to the story — plus real dimension to the relationship between the cousins, who grew up more like sisters — their frequency rankles and keeps the film from ever feeling grounded in what’s happening now. And that now is, by far, the most compelling part of the film.

The film’s performances often suffer a similar fate. Haocun and Qi’s acting varies, but when the stars are tasked with more physical work, they shine (nothing in the film is better than its opening sequence, in which Haocun muscles her way out of her prison, though a sequence involving Qi repeatedly enduring a wet, freezing cold stunt comes close). More emotional scenes, however, feel hammy and didactic, heavy on the telling over the showing (and that telling hinges on being damn blunt about the whole thing, to boot).

But it’s no wonder the pair find it so hard to escape the pull of their family legacy, as their identities are entirely tied up in it. Tian Tian has been doomed to follow in her drug addict father’s footsteps (the hows and whys of that particular situation are almost unbelievably melodramatic), while Fang Di long ago abandoned her professional dreams (along with any cash she’s earned) to help pay off the sizable debts of her factory owner parents (most of it seemingly due to her nouveau riche mother’s inability to perform honest accounting. If that all sounds heavy, it is.

Still, Qi finds unexpected entertainment in the trio of bad guys dispatched to grab the girls (all caricatures of these kinds of dudes, all cleverly handled), including a dim-witted driver, a silent tough guy, and the very put-out boss who can’t believe he has to do this. When the three end up in Film City, their ineptitude leads them to the wrong film set, where they end up tossed right into the fray, care of a dizzy and fizzy sequence that sees them attempting to do their jobs while also pretending to be film extras. It’s the kind of smart, out of the box bit that plays to its unique location, and puffs the film back up.

Twists like that add surprise to a film that, so steeped in tragedy and the weight of familial trauma, often seems to be driving to a single possible ending. But Qu’s ability to keep us focused on the ways in which we get there remains a highlight of the film, if not the kind of high-wire act Fang Di herself is used to attempting, at least a different take on what it means to perform our pain, and to find a place where it can drive off into some sort of proverbial sunset.

Grade: B-

“Girls on Wire” premiered at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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