{ "id": "epr9ck77y1", "slug": "the-shadowless-tower", "title": "The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2023-and-2024", "label": "Drama films 2023 and 2024", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2023-and-2024" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2023-and-2024.alpha-o-to-y", "label": "Titles O to Y", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2023-and-2024.alpha-o-to-y" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "China · 2021 and later: Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "path": [ { "id": "geo.chn", "label": "China", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021", "label": "China · 2021 and later", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t2021.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光) is Zhang Lü's 2023 Chinese drama about Beijing food critic Gu Wentong reconnecting with his long-estranged father, named for the shadowless White Pagoda of Miaoying Temple; Berlinale competition entry and four-time Tiantan Award winner.", "snippet": "The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光) is Zhang Lü's 2023 Chinese drama about Beijing food critic Gu Wentong reconnecting with his long-estranged father, named for the shadowless White Pagoda of Miaoying Temple; Berlinale competition entry and four-time Tiantan Award winner.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2023-and-2024.alpha-o-to-y", "markdown": "# The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光)\n\n**The Shadowless Tower** (白塔之光) is a 2023 Chinese drama film directed and written by Zhang Lü, following a middle-aged Beijing food critic who reopens contact with the father who disappeared from his life more than 40 years earlier[1](https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/the-shadowless-tower). The 144-minute film, in Mandarin and [Cantonese](https://www.edgepedia.org/cantonese), premiered in the main competition of the 73rd [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) and later won four Tiantan Awards at the 13th Beijing International Film Festival[2](https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/film/the-shadowless-tower-bai-ta-zhi-guang-2023) • [3](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2256695.shtml). Its title refers to the White Pagoda of the Miaoying Temple in Beijing's Xicheng district, a structure famous for casting no visible shadow[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Zhang Lü, a Chinese director of Korean ethnicity; his thirteenth fictional feature[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower) |\n| Premiere | Main competition, 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, February 2023; Golden Bear nomination[3](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2256695.shtml) |\n| Runtime and languages | 144 minutes; Mandarin and Cantonese[2](https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/film/the-shadowless-tower-bai-ta-zhi-guang-2023) |\n| Principal cast | Xin Baiqing (Gu Wentong), Huang Yao (Ouyang Wenhui), Tian Zhuangzhuang (Gu Yunlai)[1](https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/the-shadowless-tower) |\n| Beijing festival results | Tiantan Awards for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Artistic Contribution; nominations for Best Film and Best Screenplay[3](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2256695.shtml) |\n| Chinese theatrical release | October 27, 2023[5](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434) |\n| Setting | The Xicheng district of Beijing, around the White Pagoda of the Miaoying Temple[2](https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/film/the-shadowless-tower-bai-ta-zhi-guang-2023) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story\n\nGu Wentong (Xin Baiqing) is a divorced former poet who now works as a restaurant critic in Beijing, raising a young daughter everyone calls Smiley; after her mother's death, his mother left him a small two-room apartment in Xicheng, the district dominated by the White Pagoda[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower). When Gu was five, his father was accused of molesting a woman on a bus, and Gu's mother threw him out of the house; the father has lived for years in a seaside town, biking the roughly three hundred miles to Beijing to catch glimpses of his son, daughter, and granddaughter[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower).\n\nAfter the mother's death, Gu's brother-in-law Li Jun (Wang Hongwei) slips him the father's address and phone number, and Gu, encouraged by Ouyang Wenhui (Huang Yao), a young photographer he works with, decides to face his father and attempt to rebuild the relationship[1](https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/the-shadowless-tower) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower). The film never states why the custody of Smiley is arranged as it is, and it leaves the question of the father's guilt or innocence open: by the time the possibility of his innocence arose, both his ex-wife and daughter were too set against him to consider it[6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-shadowless-tower-review-zhang-lu/).\n\nThe relationship between Gu and Ouyang stays deliberately unresolved. She is twenty-five and he is in his mid-forties, and she teases him by introducing him in public as either her boyfriend or her father, whichever makes him more uncomfortable[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower) • [6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-shadowless-tower-review-zhang-lu/). As one character puts it, \"Too much politeness builds a wall between people\"[7](https://www.kpbs.org/news/2024/03/18/a-beijing-restaurant-critic-arrives-at-a-crossroads-in-this-absorbing-family-drama).\n\n## The White Pagoda\n\nThe film is named for the White Pagoda, the historical stupa of the Miaoying Temple in Beijing's Xicheng district, built in 1279[2](https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/film/the-shadowless-tower-bai-ta-zhi-guang-2023) • [6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-shadowless-tower-review-zhang-lu/). Its builders designed with the light in mind, so the tower casts no visible shadow, or none that can be seen; according to legend, the shadow falls two thousand miles away in Tibet[8](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3211054/shadowless-tower-how-korean-chinese-filmmaker-zhang-lu-thinks-his-new-film-maybe-reflects-reality) • [4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower).\n\nZhang connected this quality to the film's characters. \"Nobody cares too much about their shadow,\" he told the *South China Morning Post*. \"But in certain emotional set-ups, you might start to pay attention to your shadow. Why? Because I think the shadow is a confirmation of the self.\"[8](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3211054/shadowless-tower-how-korean-chinese-filmmaker-zhang-lu-thinks-his-new-film-maybe-reflects-reality) Critics read the pagoda as a metaphor for the protagonist's own sense of impermanence, a man wondering whether he will leave a meaningful impression[7](https://www.kpbs.org/news/2024/03/18/a-beijing-restaurant-critic-arrives-at-a-crossroads-in-this-absorbing-family-drama).\n\n## Production\n\nZhang Lü wrote the screenplay during the COVID-19 pandemic. Returning to China from South Korea, where he had been teaching, he spent two weeks in hotel quarantine in [Guangzhou](https://www.edgepedia.org/guangzhou) and used the confinement to write the script, having decided he wanted to write toward Beijing and the Baitasi (White Pagoda Temple) area of Xisi, where he had spent time in his youth[5](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434) • [8](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3211054/shadowless-tower-how-korean-chinese-filmmaker-zhang-lu-thinks-his-new-film-maybe-reflects-reality). The film was shot in Beijing, largely around the White Pagoda Temple[9](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25068377).\n\nAlthough Beijing is the city where Zhang has lived longest, having moved there in the 1980s, this was the first film in more than twenty years of filmmaking in which he anchored his camera entirely in the city[5](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434). He has said he could not approach Beijing as a tourist; the film had to be a story of Beijing people, with outsiders added in[5](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434). The film deliberately avoids fixing its time period: Zhang removed all calendars from the frame, leaving only incidental details, such as masks worn in the background during shooting, to date the story[10](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434).\n\n## The director\n\nZhang Lü is a third-generation ethnic Korean born in China. He was a novelist of some renown when he met the South Korean director and former novelist [Lee Chang-dong](https://www.edgepedia.org/lee-chang-dong) at a writers' conference; at thirty-eight, while teaching Chinese Literature at Yanbian University, he took up a challenge from a Chinese director to make a film of his own, completing the short *Eleven*, which premiered in competition at Venice[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower). *The Shadowless Tower* is his thirteenth fictional feature[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower). His earlier films include *Desert Dream* (2007), *Scenery* (2013), and *Yanagawa* (2021), and many of his titles are named for places, including *Yanagawa* and *Fukuoka*[8](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3211054/shadowless-tower-how-korean-chinese-filmmaker-zhang-lu-thinks-his-new-film-maybe-reflects-reality) • [9](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25068377).\n\n## Reception and awards\n\nAfter its Berlin premiere in February 2023, the film won four Tiantan Awards at the 13th Beijing International Film Festival: Best Actor for Xin Baiqing, Best Supporting Actor for Tian Zhuangzhuang, Best Cinematography for Piao Songri, and Best Artistic Contribution for the film itself, alongside nominations for Best Film and Best Screenplay[3](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2256695.shtml). At the 10th Silk Road International Film Festival in late September 2023, it took Best Film and Best Cinematography[5](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434). At the 36th Golden Rooster Awards it was nominated for Best Cinematography (Piao Songri) and Best Actress (Huang Yao)[3](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2256695.shtml).\n\nCritics emphasized the film's unhurried, oblique method. The *Los Angeles Times* described it as \"a gently enigmatic character piece that resists telling you too much about its characters\"[11](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-03-30/the-shadowless-tower-review-china-zhang-lu-xin-baiqing). Writing in *Variety*, Jessica Kiang observed that the film reveals its arcs of change \"not in dramatic showdowns or sudden revelations, but in ellipses, in the occasional mysterious fold in chronology, and most rewardingly, in the casual, unforced repetition of certain motifs\"[4](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower).\n\nA metatextual layer drew particular comment: Zhang cast Tian Zhuangzhuang, one of the noted Fifth Generation Chinese filmmakers whose career was derailed by government censorship after politically charged early work such as *The Blue Kite* (1993), as the father Gu Yunlai, a man living with a disgrace that may never have happened[6](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-shadowless-tower-review-zhang-lu/).\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Shadowless Tower — watch online, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/the-shadowless-tower)\n2. [The Shadowless Tower (Bai Ta Zhi Guang), 2023 — Istanbul Modern](https://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/film/the-shadowless-tower-bai-ta-zhi-guang-2023)\n3. [白塔之光 详细资料 — 1905电影网](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2256695.shtml)\n4. [Zhang Lu's The Shadowless Tower — The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8269-zhang-lus-the-shadowless-tower)\n5. [专访｜《白塔之光》导演张律：北京，或许永远是一个谜 — 澎湃新闻](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434)\n6. [The Shadowless Tower Review: Transcending Alienation — Slant Magazine](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-shadowless-tower-review-zhang-lu/)\n7. [A Beijing restaurant critic arrives at a crossroads — KPBS Public Media](https://www.kpbs.org/news/2024/03/18/a-beijing-restaurant-critic-arrives-at-a-crossroads-in-this-absorbing-family-drama)\n8. [The Shadowless Tower: how Korean-Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu thinks his new film maybe 'reflects reality' — South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3211054/shadowless-tower-how-korean-chinese-filmmaker-zhang-lu-thinks-his-new-film-maybe-reflects-reality)\n9. [专访 | 张律：拍电影，诚实地对待空间里的人和时间 — 澎湃新闻](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25068377)\n10. [专访｜《白塔之光》导演张律（mobile version） — 澎湃新闻](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25098434)\n11. [In the cryptic 'The Shadowless Tower,' connection is stymied by a murky past — Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-03-30/the-shadowless-tower-review-china-zhang-lu-xin-baiqing)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2023 and 2024 › Titles O to Y*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Shadowless Tower (白塔之光)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-shadowless-tower. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Shadowless Tower is Zhang Lü's 2023 Chinese drama about Beijing food critic Gu Wentong reconnecting with his long-estranged father, named for the shadowless White Pagoda of Miaoying Temple; Berlinale competition entry and four-time Tiantan Award winner." }