Brief History of a Family (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts | The Chinese Saltburn? - video Dailymotion

Film Brain

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.

Brief History of a Family (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts | The Chinese Saltburn?

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