Writer and Director: Zou Jing
Zou Jing’s debut feature is made to be viewed on the big screen. The early scenes, vividly shot, have the quality of old-fashioned cinema, verging on the epic at times, and the story, about a young Chinese girl, is almost Dickensian. The childhood vignettes – a shot taken from above of children exercising in a schoolyard or of protagonist Wu Lian making a kite with her father while the rain pours down outside – are the best parts of the film. But Zou’s film takes a darker path when the father dies.
As the film’s title suggests, we learn little of Lian’s inner life. She rarely talks to anyone after her newly widowed mother sends her to live with strangers in the city. Ostensibly critiquing the one-child policy in China that was in place between the years 1980 and 2016, A Girl Unknown wears its politics lightly. Without some knowledge of the policy, the viewer might think more harshly of the mother as rather too eager to give up her daughter. We discover that the mother is pregnant and that she is soon to remarry, but nothing of the law that forbids a second child is made clear.
However, the mother seems only vaguely troubled by her ‘decision’, disappearing in the middle of the night while Lian sleeps in her new bed in the city. Her new ‘parents’ don’t tell Lian what’s going on and instead comfort her by promising that her mother will return once the summer’s ended; the woman is kind to begin with, while the man is mostly silent, except for complaining that Lian’s nickname is a “hillbilly” name. Lian is bullied at her new school for being a country bumpkin.
Scenes are short, similar to a soap opera, and time passes quickly. Later we see her with friends, and the group chat about boys like any other teenage girls. She remains sullen with her new mother, who dresses her up in colourful frocks when she’d rather wear unisex sportswear. Lian refuses to refer to her as “mother”. This section of the film ends when she is sexually assaulted by a neighbour.
Young actor Cao Ruofan is excellent as the six-year-old JuanJuan, the name Lian is called at the home with her mother and father. When the character is older, Li Gengxi takes over the role. Both are tough and inscrutable. Neither of them smiles much, although there is a nice scene when the younger Lian is taken to a funfair by her new mother. The trials of childhood are momentarily forgotten when on a wooden rollercoaster. Or later, when running towards the waves of the ocean.
Zou keeps her distance, forcing the audience to fill in the gaps. The story is harrowing but always beautifully shot in bright colours. Hope comes from an unexpected place, and when it does come, it hovers in the murky hues of a blue evening by the sea.
A Girl Unknown is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
