*Spoilers ahead.*

The Wild Goose Lake is a beautiful noir tale. The neon-lit saturated story is about bad decisions and reflection, with an overt water theme throughout, and whose pacing moves like an old-timey film. In addition to a couple of twists and turns that give it the feel of a classic crime drama, we aren’t shown the traditional beginning, middle and end elements in a linear fashion. Instead, we’re meant to peel back the layers of the film like an onion until we get to its core.

In Yi'nan Diao’s fourth film as a director and seventh as a writer, it appears we have co-leads. Believing it at first to be Zenong’s story (played by Ge Hu), a handsome leading man sporting an injury to the face and carrying a small bag, he’s quickly met by the waifish Aiai (played by Lun-Mei Kwei), in a pixie haircut and bright pink clothes, who gives him options of how to proceed. While we’re in the dark as to what the situation currently is, having jumped right into the middle of the story, Zenong helps us out by telling Aiai—and thus, us—how he got here, and we back-track two days with him.

Multiple families of underworld gangs gather in the bowels of a hotel to go over the latest techniques in scooter and motorcycle theft. They divvy up territories. A dispute breaks out about who should get the more popular areas until a gun goes off and a huge fight breaks out.

Zenong’s gang member, known as “Redhead” for his colored hair, fires a gun that injures a twin from the rival gang. Zenong offers to pay for the medical expenses to put the matter at rest. Instead, a mediator suggests a contest to see who should have the coveted area: six men per team, how many scooters and motorcycles can be stolen in a given night. The winner gets to claim the territory and the game is officially afoot.

During this showdown, one of the twins sets up a trap for Redhead, who is decapitated in front of Zenong’s eyes. Zenong is shot at and barely makes it out alive. He has a non-fatal shoulder injury and has to crawl through the mud from a riverbank. Zenong takes off on a motorbike and fires at what he thinks is the rival gang—instead accidentally killing two police officers.

This sets Zenong off on a journey of errors. None of what happens appears to be his doing; he was just trying to keep the peace and the “honor among thieves.” We journey through the maze of “if only that didn’t happen” as Zenong’s fate gets more and more complicated.

On the run with the town’s entire police force after him, Zenong successfully dodges their attempts to apprehend him, like a ghost. The cops pinpoint him to an area called Wild Goose Lake.

Then we start to find out Aiai’s backstory and her attempts to be a “bathing beauty,” a euphemism for a prostitute who works by the beach. We see her passed over for other “beauties” who flirt with johns and getting into fights with other women. Zenong’s gang members include her pimp, and Aiai’s recruited into the mission that involves overseeing Zenong’s next steps.

Aiai offers to “replace” Zenong’s wife. It seems cryptic to what this means at first—replace her in a scheme to pretend to be a couple and flee? But then we discover what she really means, as Aiai tries to bring Aiai’s wife, Shujun (played by Regina Wan) to him. 

Shujun is reluctant at first, but eventually goes with Aiai. We discover that Shujun hasn’t seen Zenong in five years and that she’s called the police on him. We also learn that some of Zenong’s gang members have planned to turn him in return for a large monetary reward. Zenong’s plan is to have his wife turn him in, so that she can have the reward money for herself and her son. Aiai is to pretend to be Shujun, get the money, and then get a cut of it.

But the police are still on Zenong’s trail, and closing in on Aiai, as she attempts to retreive Shujun. Her character is as layered as the film, and while she’s another victim of the patriarchal structure of the gangs, it’s important to remember that Aiai isn’t unflawed, and her fate isn’t always positive, no matter how cunning and self-sufficient she is. We get a glimpse of her inner struggle during an intimate moment on a small boat between Aiai and Zenong, when we see Aiai violated by another man in this story.

In the end set-piece, Aiai and Zenong are in a noodle shop and when she gets up to pay, the police descend upon him. Zenong gives chase, but is shot to death along the water’s edge. Shortly after, we see Aiai step up to claim the reward money. She picks up Shujun, and together, they walk off with the money.

Aiai is the archetypical “hooker with the heart of gold.” As a viewer, I’m apt to believe she allowed the police to have Zenong in order to save Shujun (as he wished). Even with the opportunity to keep all the money to herself, she appears to do the right thing and honor the dead man’s wishes. Aiai’s character touches upon Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, and Diao appears to rectify things for his female lead, bringing two women together in the end, after the ego and horror of men destroys everything else. 

The Wild Goose Lake comes out in the US this Friday, March 6, 2020. Ari Aster calls it “a blast”, I call it worth seeing.