per song

Sloth, Pomeranian, Shark, Yoyo and Shrek live in Chongquing, a Chinese city on the Yangtze River, with a population of around eight million. The five friends spend their lives in the shadow of skyscrapers and bridges, at streetside cafés and in the privacy of their own living rooms. Gradually we learn more about their friendship, their families, insecurities, finances and worries. Whether it’s a problem at university, a positive HIV test or a difficult relationship with divorced parents, they each see their own problem as the most serious. But who’s to say whose suffering is the worst? The conversations go back and forth between heavyweight topics and lighthearted joking about internet dating and homosexuality. The dialogue is so animated that it sometimes feels like fiction. A pensive black-and-white film with extended scenes, interspersed with intimate conversations among friends who wish each other well but are also each other’s competitors.