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The Breaking Ice

2023 · 100 min

A quiet, wintry character study that drifts through loneliness and fragile connection, asking for patience and rewarding it with raw emotional honesty.

Overview
In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
In your watch list

How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • melancholicstrength 3 of 3
  • tensestrength 1 of 3
  • warmstrength 1 of 3
  • earneststrength 2 of 3
Pacing
slow-burn, 1 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • isolation
  • trauma
  • identity
  • friendship
  • healing
Places
  • small town
  • countryside
Era
contemporary
Audience
adult
Form
  • nonlinear
Content intensity
  • Gore none
  • Language mild
  • Violence mild
  • Sex mild
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action1
Horror1
Humour2
Realism8
Romance3
Tension4
Darkness6
Complexity6
Emotional weight8

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres
drama
Directed by
Anthony Chen
Written by
Anthony Chen
Starring
Zhou Dongyu, Liu Haoran, Qu Chuxiao, Ruguang Wei, Liu Baisha, Zhao Wenhao, Li Yusheng
Music
Kin Leonn
Cinematography
Yu Jing-pin
Runtime
100 min
Country
China, Singapore
Languages
Mandarin, Korean

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