Jia's restrained yet fierce X-ray of the ills of modern China also evokes a calm, intimate tenderness for its struggling survivors.

... a scrappy, neo-realist tale of societal scrounging that’s paused by poetic moments of slow cinema.

“Xiao Wu” very much feels like a first film, but one from a filmmaker whose talent is immensely clear, and ever present on screen

In his debut, Jia offers a rather sober portrait of the lack of opportunity and misery in a small Chinese town that bears witness to the beginning of the capitalism-driven socio-economic transition. [Full review in Spanish]