
Li Qiuming is a young trainee at a digital mapping company. His job is to survey the streets of the ever changing city and keep the mapping system up to date. To make ends meet, he installs video cameras at public venues, but hides his side job from his strict father who is a senior editor of a government-run magazine. One day while out surveying, he has a brief encounter with a beautiful young woman who disappears into a secluded alley. He learns that the data he collected o... (Full plot summary below)
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Li Qiuming is a young trainee at a digital mapping company. His job is to survey the streets of the ever changing city and keep the mapping system up to date. To make ends meet, he installs video cameras at public venues, but hides his side job from his strict father who is a senior editor of a government-run magazine. One day while out surveying, he has a brief encounter with a beautiful young woman who disappears into a secluded alley. He learns that the data he collected of the street will not register in the mapping system. The street has disappeared as if it never existed. Desperate to reconnect with the mysterious woman he continues his investigation of the unmappable street only to discover something that will change his life forever.
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| Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaVivian Qu's debut feature slowly reveals itself to be an eerie meditation on the increasingly thin line between technological illusion and hard reality. |
| User ReviewMichael HLife under state surveillance with the concomitant risk of sudden, unexpected loss (or threat of loss) of liberty emerged as a universal story while this movie was being made. It's no longer something that happens elsewhere but something we seem to recognize as a condition we all share. This was brought home by the round of tittering that swept through the audience when one of the characters says (paraphrasing from memory), "We wouldn't be investigating you if there weren't a reason." It's a decent movie on the theme. The movie starts out feeling like a comedy and there's a good bit of humor and romance before things become unsettling. I wish it had turned out a bit better, but certainly good enough that I'll be watching director Vivian Qu. (I mean that in the best way.) |
| User ReviewMatt MLi is a young man who works at a digital mapping company. One day while taking pictures, he sees a young woman disappear into a secluded alley and instantly falls in love with her. After some time, he finally gets to meet her and the two start dating. But after she mysteriously disappears, things start getting shady and strange. Considering the precarious state of Chinese independent cinema, the fact that Trap Street was even made is remarkable in itself. However, Vivian Qu's first directorial effort in a feature film also deals with the delicate theme of state surveillance, one that despite its universal relevance seems particularly pertinent to China - and for that reason all the more brave. Trap Street is not a perfect film. It is a slow starter and some of its plot developments are nothing short of puzzling. However, in its most inspired moments, Trap Street is quite an interesting and intriguing modern noir that sets a tone to a promising career for its young filmmaker. |