# Ripples of Life
**Ripples of Life** (永安镇故事集, *Yong'an Zhen Gu Shi Ji*) is a 2021 Chinese comedy-drama directed by Wei Shujun about a film crew that arrives in the small southern town of Yong'an to shoot an art-house film, disturbing the routines of the residents before everything returns to calm. It premiered in the Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) of the 74th Cannes Film Festival on 14 July 2021 and was released in mainland China on 8 September 2023.[1](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86/53845821?fromModule=lemma_inlink)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / screenwriters | Wei Shujun; screenplay by Kang Chunlei and Wei Shujun[2](https://www.siff.com/content?aid=101230831110334466887326551773189159) |
| Cast | Yang Zishan, Huang Miyi, Liu Yang, and Kang Chunlei in the leading roles[2](https://www.siff.com/content?aid=101230831110334466887326551773189159) |
| Runtime / language | 123 minutes; Mandarin and Hunan dialect[3](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/ripples-of-life/) |
| Premiere | Directors' Fortnight, 74th Cannes Film Festival, 14 July 2021[1](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86/53845821?fromModule=lemma_inlink) |
| Structure | Three chapters titled after existing Chinese films: *Waiting Alone*, *Little Red Flowers*, and *Pluto Moment*[4](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077) |
| Principal awards | Fei Mu Award for Best Director and Youth Jury Director Award, 5th Pingyao International Film Festival; Jury Prize, International Competition, Brussels International Film Festival 2021; Best International Film, 9th Bosphorus International Film Festival[5](https://www.scff.sg/project/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86-ripples-of-life/) |
| Chinese release | 8 September 2023; box office just over 2 million yuan after four days[1](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86/53845821?fromModule=lemma_inlink) • [4](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077) |
## Spoilers
### Structure and story
The finished film is a three-part, self-reflexive work in which the film-within-the-film is also called *Ripples of Life*. The three chapters take their titles from three earlier Chinese films, *Waiting Alone* (独自等待), *Little Red Flowers* (看上去很美), and *Pluto Moment* (冥王星时刻), a detail that signals the film's subject is cinema itself.[4](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077) Wei has summarized the three parts as "cannot leave," "cannot return," and "cannot shoot."[6](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html)
The first chapter follows Xiao Gu (Huang Miyi), the young hostess of a small-town restaurant serving her in-laws, who observes the crew's pre-production and dreams of a more glamorous life; she is cast in a small role, but when the star arrives and replaces her, she is pulled back to reality.[8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360) The second chapter follows the actress Chen Chen (Yang Zishan), who grew up in the town and returns with the production hoping to reinvent her career, only to find that old friends and neighbors want to use her fame for their own ends, leaving her to question whether a successful person can truly go home.[8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360) The third chapter turns to the crew itself: a director ([Liu Yang](https://www.edgepedia.org/liu-yang)) hailed by critics as "tomorrow's master" presses an insecure screenwriter (Kang Chunlei, playing a version of himself) to finish the final script as the start date nears, and the two disagree about the heroine's motives, whether the town will ever change, and the film's style.[8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360) • [4](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077) The arguments between the on-screen director and screenwriter draw on disputes that Wei and Kang actually had while making the film.[4](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077)
## Production history
The film's production became nearly as well known among Chinese cinephiles as the film itself. In mid-November 2020, Wei Shujun, screenwriter Kang Chunlei, and a crew of several dozen arrived in Zixing, Chenzhou, in Hunan Province, to prepare a four-chapter script that Kang had worked on for six years, covering the life predicaments of childhood, middle age, and old age.[6](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html) The project had been selected in 2020 for the Shanghai International Film Festival's SIFF PROJECT co-production market, and shooting began on 30 December 2020.[7](https://www.siff.com/content?aid=import-cms-4285)
**The script was scrapped.** After 17 days of preparation, with sets designed, locations found, and some actor contracts signed, Wei felt the script was getting worse with every revision and decided to stop. Kang agreed that the drafts no longer felt like his writing or Wei's. Wei apologized to producer Huang Xufeng and the cast, and the crew expected to disband.[6](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html) Kang then proposed a new idea: a story about a film crew coming to a small town to shoot a movie. The first chapter came from his observation of a real young restaurant hostess, a mother of a child of about one year old, at a restaurant behind the crew's hotel, whose fashionable dress and restless manner suggested a bird wanting to escape. Wei then wrote the second story, about a movie star returning to a hometown she can no longer fit into, and Kang suggested the third: write about ourselves, a director and screenwriter arguing as the shooting date approaches.[6](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html) Wei completed a first draft of the new script in 3 days and a second draft in 7 days, and the film shot as scheduled.[6](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html) Wei later compared the distance between the original script and the final one to the difference between filming *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* and filming the story of a crew shooting *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* in Hengdian.[6](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html)
## Reception and awards
At Cannes, Screen International's review by John Berra, a film critic, called the film "a dexterous rumination on the pursuit of authenticity" and noted its comparison with the meta-comedies of the South Korean director [Hong Sang-soo](https://www.edgepedia.org/hong-sang-soo), while observing that Wei was developing his own sensibility, drawing candidly on his immediate experience and questioning the role of cinema in a fragmented Chinese society.[9](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/ripples-of-life-cannes-review/5161389.article) A FIPRESCI festival report described it as a self-reflexive, multi-layered film that tries to reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary.[10](https://fipresci.org/report/cannes-2022-jafari/)
**Festival honors.** The film won the Fei Mu Award for Best Director and the Youth Jury Director Award at the 5th Pingyao International Film Festival in October 2021, where it was one of the festival's most sought-after screenings, and the Jury Prize in the International Competition of the 2021 Brussels International Film Festival.[5](https://www.scff.sg/project/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86-ripples-of-life/) • [11](https://scdnews.com/images/paper/211025/211025B.pdf) It was also named Best International Film at the 9th Bosphorus International Film Festival, screened in the Focus section at the 26th Busan International Film Festival, competed for Best Film at the 22nd Tokyo FILMeX, and was selected for the 65th [BFI London Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/bfi-london-film-festival).[8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360) At the 36th Golden Rooster Awards in November 2023, Huang Miyi won Best Supporting Actress, and the film was nominated for Best Small-Budget Feature Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.[1](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86/53845821?fromModule=lemma_inlink)
**Commercial release.** The film reached mainland Chinese theaters on 8 September 2023, more than two years after its Cannes premiere, and earned just over 2 million yuan in its first four days, with limited screenings thereafter.[1](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86/53845821?fromModule=lemma_inlink) • [4](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077) It holds a Douban rating of 7.1 and an IMDb rating of 6.8.[8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360) A Communication University of China research team ranked it 41st on its 2023 list of Chinese films' overseas market and cultural competitiveness, describing its overseas reach as strong professional recognition with limited mass-market impact, distributed mainly through festivals in France, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Japan.[8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360)
## Place in Wei Shujun's career
*Ripples of Life* was Wei Shujun's second feature. His debut, *Striding into the Wind*, was the only Chinese feature selected for the official selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, and his graduation short *Yanbian Youth* received a Special Mention in the short film competition at the 71st Cannes Film Festival in 2018.[12](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_13591550) The film reused the production team of *Striding into the Wind* and cast several other young Chinese directors in acting roles, including Yang Pingdao, Song Chuan, Liang Ming, Zhai Yixiang, and Yang Jin.[7](https://www.siff.com/content?aid=import-cms-4285) The French editor Matthieu Laclau, a longtime collaborator of [Jia Zhangke](https://www.edgepedia.org/jia-zhangke), edited the film, with cinematography by Wang Jiehong; international sales were handled by Rediance.[9](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/ripples-of-life-cannes-review/5161389.article) • [8](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360) Chinese commentary has credited the film with breaking the perceived "curse" of a young director's difficult second feature.[13](https://www.infzm.com/contents/256372?source=202&source_1=256370)
## References
1. [永安镇故事集, Baidu Baike](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86/53845821?fromModule=lemma_inlink)
2. [SIFF PROJECT｜创投成片《永安镇故事集》9月8日上映, Shanghai International Film Festival](https://www.siff.com/content?aid=101230831110334466887326551773189159)
3. [Ripples of Life, Film Society of Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/ripples-of-life/)
4. [没排片了！这部文艺片，值得被看见, Mtime时光网](https://content.mtime.com/article/229141077)
5. [永安镇故事集 Ripples of Life, Singapore Chinese Film Festival](https://www.scff.sg/project/%E6%B0%B8%E5%AE%89%E9%95%87%E6%95%85%E4%BA%8B%E9%9B%86-ripples-of-life/)
6. [《永安镇故事集》导演：推翻剧本重来，却是"最接近电影的时刻", 新京报](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1694770858168961.html)
7. [SIFF PROJECT | 2020年创投项目《永安镇故事集》跨年开机, Shanghai International Film Festival](https://www.siff.com/content?aid=import-cms-4285)
8. [永安镇故事集, cnfilmrank](https://www.cnfilmrank.com/zh/movies/1360)
9. ['Ripples Of Life': Cannes Review, Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/ripples-of-life-cannes-review/5161389.article)
10. [The Extraordinary in the Ordinary, FIPRESCI](https://fipresci.org/report/cannes-2022-jafari/)
11. [中國影視 Daily News, 美南日報, 25 October 2021](https://scdnews.com/images/paper/211025/211025B.pdf)
12. [《永安镇故事集》亮相戛纳导演双周, 澎湃新闻](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_13591550)
13. [《永安镇故事集》在电影里开电影的玩笑, 南方人物周刊/南方周末](https://www.infzm.com/contents/256372?source=202&source_1=256370)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2021 to 2022*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license