Film Brain reviews a mysterious Chinese drama, about a teen who assimilates himself into another family, that has drawn some (not entirely accurate) comparisons to Saltburn.
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00:00It's strong comparisons to Saltburn, but the Chinese drama Brief History of a Family
00:04is a lot more complex than that.
00:06Yun Shao is a troubled teen who befriends his classmate Wei,
00:10who brings Shao to his parents, a biologist father and former flight attendant mother.
00:14The parents become increasingly close to Shao,
00:17and Wei's frustration widens the cracks in the family unit.
00:21The directorial debut of Lin Jingyi, the film explores the effects of China's
00:25former one-child policy has had on this family,
00:28and the recurring image is that of a microscope,
00:30where the longer you look, the more secrets are revealed.
00:34The Wei family on the surface are very comfortably middle class,
00:37but the family are distant and detached from one another.
00:40As their only child, Wei has had a huge wave of expectation placed upon him,
00:44especially by his father, who wants him to learn English so he can study abroad,
00:49but he's far more interested in fencing when he isn't just playing video games.
00:53That sense of disappointment at Wei's lack of ambition and not having another child
00:57is a big reason why they're drawn towards Shao
01:00and start treating him like the son they never had, complicated by the class dynamic.
01:05Shao wants to learn about their interests and strives for social mobility,
01:08and they're all too willing to try and save this poor boy.
01:12The film has a very clinical approach,
01:15emphasised by the Wei family's coldly modern home filled with glass interiors
01:19and a delicately balanced pacing that accentuates its many ambiguities.
01:24The film never becomes an out-and-out thriller,
01:26but there's a sinister troubling undercurrent to Shao's presence
01:30that makes the drama genuinely tense.
01:33Shao claims to have an abusive father,
01:35but we never see his home life to confirm this.
01:38Is he lying or is he telling the truth?
01:40Is he just manipulating them?
01:42Regardless, there's something deeply uncomfortable
01:45about how much Wei's parents embrace and assimilate Shao
01:48as their perfect surrogate son at the expense of their own.
01:53It's no surprise that Wei soon becomes jealous of Shao
01:55and starts perceiving him as a threat,
01:57either as a pseudo-sibling rivalry
02:00or maybe genuinely something more dangerous and threatening.
02:04The uneasiness is amplified further by the sporadic score
02:07which suddenly comes to life as a throbbing synthesizer at key moments.
02:12Even the ending is left open to interpretation,
02:14and that might frustrate some viewers at not being given all the answers,
02:18but they'll draw their own conclusions about this microcosm of society at large.
02:23It's a slow film and doesn't have the scandalous moments of Saltburn,
02:27but this is mysterious and elusive in a way that drew me in.