Trap Street

Description

A slow-building drama set in contemporary China, Trap Street has a perfect modern-noir protagonist in Li Qiuming (Lu Yulai), a naïve survey engineer who views the world through his gadgets: cell phone, GPS watch, video games. When he’s not working his day job, he’s got a side gig installing hidden cameras in bars, health spas and other businesses interested in keeping close tabs on customers. Qiuming’s happy-go-lucky life — he lives in a bachelor pad with like-minded bros, visiting his old-fashioned parents when he has the time — takes a turn when he spots comely Guan Lifen (He Wenchao) through the lens of his surveyor’s equipment. She works in a plain building on a shadowy lane that stymies the map crew by not yielding any data — it’s a “trap street,” per the lingo of Qiumung’s mapmaking coworker, who shrugs it off: “Some places just won’t register in the system.” To Qiumung’s delight, Lifen agrees to go out with him, and he’s soon so smitten he doesn’t realize there’s another trap of sorts down that mysterious alley. First-time writer-director Vivian Qu is clearly interested in examining what it’s like to be a 21st-century young adult — with access to the Internet and other technological conveniences — within China’s surveillance state. Using just a handful of characters and a plot that hinges on a chance encounter and a seemingly tiny blunder, Trap Street unearths a hidden world of government control lurking just under the surface, like a road that doesn’t appear on any maps, but exists just the same. –Cheryl Eddy

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