Shower is about everyday people, and although it has some contrived plot devices (including the looming deadline of the city's threat to the bathhouse), it is warm and observant, and its ending is surprisingly true to the material.

There is nothing wrong with a film following a well-established road so long as it brings something else along for the ride. Shower brings a number of particularly strong performances and a gentle sense of realism that proves deeply effective.

While the film is unabashedly sentimental, Zhang doesn't feel the need to bash the audience over the head with melodramatic tactics.

[A] bittersweet exploration of the inexorable slide from past to future traditional cultures face as the entire world becomes Westernized.