Trap Street (2013)

Country: China
Format: movie
Genre: romance, real life
Cast: Yulai Lu, Wenchao He, Yong Hou, Xiaofei Hao, Qun Xiang, Tiejian Liu, Xinghong Li, Tong Liu, Shijie Feng, Jiao Wang, Liao Jin, Si Sun, Guoha Ma, Youliang Li, 
Synopsis: Li Qiuming is a young guy in his twenties who is working at digital mapping company. One day he meets with beautiful Guan Lifen, who he gives a lift. As he is trying to enter the street code to system the street he only gets errors. He does not know that his attempts to get close to Lifen will change his life forever.  
Rating: 3/5
If anyone has ever read Kafka's "The Trial" then you may be sure that this movie has similar elements in it. So you can predict whether you like this movie or not by knowing if you like Kafkaesque style or not. For example I like it, but Yanne hates it and same is with the movie - Yanne was so-so, while I liked it.

I had weird feelings with the main character Li Qiuming. Sometimes he looks and acts like a total teenager, but sometimes he makes it all up again with his actions. With him I remembered one song

lyrics "Sometimes I believe in fate, but the chances we create, always seem to ring more true", which is correct in this "love-story", because he is always creating the possibilities to meet Lifen again. The movie is shown through his eyes and that's why it tells only as much as he knows, which makes it difficult as he himself does not know most of what is going on. But I did liked the fact that it is clearly shown how his views on technology and cameras change. Surveillance cameras are part of his "legal" part-time work with his friends, so he never thinks that they might come his biggest nightmare.

Guan Lifen is rational and you can see that she is older than Li Qiuming. It looks like she has always tried not to fall in love, because of to her work relationships are difficult to maintain. Though at first she is playing hard to get with Li Qiuming, he finally gets through to her, which makes her believe that maybe there is a possibility for them. It is really sad to see from her face that things that are happening are not the first time for her. I would have wanted to see her side of the story too, but I know that it is impossible for more than one reason. 
 I have a feeling that the "officials", who are so crazy about getting "the truth" out of Qiuming Li are

already obsessed with the idea or they had the phobia of "someone else already knows and they are coming after me". They give so many times when I just wanted to kill them all, because even "annoying" is not the right word for them anymore. I understand that their methods were justified, when we think that they had to keep in secret and the best way to make someone confess is to make him feel that you already know, but sadly the last thing works only when the suspect is really guilty - otherwise you will give someone mental trauma. 

The director Vivian Qu was also present at the film festival and she said that the idea of the movie came after seeing how much has changed in China within past decade. Most of the city appearance has changed, but at the same time there are things that have stayed the same. I think it is happening to most of the world - especially countries that want to "rise to glory". People want changes big and fast, but many times they start changing from the wrong end. Also, how much the technology has improved by its possibilities and how to cope with it. Most of us just live without thinking about the surveillance cameras, because we know that they are there to secure, but they give the possibility to check your every action. Nowadays technology has made it really simple to look into others private life, that "privacy" has lost its meaning. Vivian Qu also said that she thinks that we all should think twice about the new technology, because we never know what it might bring. I even cannot say what I think about it, because here I am - posting "myself" to web. I think that as long as things are provided with or to security, then it is okey, but of course I do not know what actually might be done with collected data.

SPOILER-review: About the ending (just going to explain, because one woman asked this question from Vivian Qu too)   everything about the future is left hanging into the air, because as the director herself said: "It does not matter what happens next to their lives or relationship, because so many things have already gone wrong".