Directing: C+
Acting: B
Writing: C
Cinematography: B+
Editing: C-

As much as it pains me to say it, I really can’t recommend purchasing tickets to watch SIFF Cinema movies streaming online—at least, not without the fastest internet speed in existence, which I can only imagine might make a difference. I generally don’t have a problem with any of the regular streaming platforms, but almost inevitably, when I watch an online movie from SIFF Cinema, at some point the screen freezes. Then it becomes a guessing game, between which will take longer: waiting for the movie to continue, or waiting for the ads and trailers to re-run in their entirety after refreshing the screen. It’s truly crazy making.

There are some movies out there that are worth such troubles, I suppose, but Striding Into the Wind, a movie from China by director Shujun Wei, sure as shit isn’t one of them. I remain baffled as to why this is billed as a “road trip movie,” when the road trip literally doesn’t happen until ninety minutes into the film. And then, we spend very little time with them actually on the road. Most of the rest of the film is a film crew, some of them from a Beijing film school, doing reshoots in Inner Mongolia.

The full run time is 134 minutes, and I spent that entire time—with an extra ten minutes or so waiting either for the damned movie to unfreeze and move on, or get back to it after a browser refresh triggers a replay of all the ads and trailers—wondering why I was supposed to care about the guy who is ostensibly the protagonist. Kun (Zhou You) is an aimless film school student who doesn’t ever take his schooling seriously, and his chubby friend Tong (Tong Linkai) who is even less dedicated.

A huge amount of time is dedicated to the relationship between these two film school students and a used Jeep that Kun buys early on. The thing is, Kun really can’t fully dedicate himself to anything at all—including getting his driver’s license. The opening shot of Striding Into the Wind features Kun angering his driving instructor, who winds up chasing him out of the car and down the street. More than once through the rest of the film, Kun gets caught by the police, either for a DUI or driving with a suspended license, always just making things worse for himself.

That description alone makes it sound like a lot more is actually happening than what we really see in this movie. Striding Into the Wind is relatively quiet, and relentlessly naturalistic, as if Wei had a ton of unusually well-shot home video footage and managed to cut it into something vaguely resembling a narrative. I have to say, I was bored as hell. It’s most disappointing when the movie you want to walk out of is playing inside your home. Why didn’t I just turn it off, then? Well, I was still going to review it, so I had to stay dedicated. Let’s say I watched this so you don’t have to. Not that any of you were going to anyway. Also, as I already noted, I had already purchased an online ticket that I didn’t want to waste. I realize you could say that’s a dumb argument, since that money was wasted either way.

The frustrating thing is that it’s clear there is talent among the people who made this movie. It’s filled with rather pleasant cinematography, from uniquely lit shots inside a car at night to grassy landscapes, although most of the film takes place in the city. The performances are competent. It’s slightly amusing that these young men are attending what they refer to as a “School of Cinematography,” and the cinematography in this movie is the only thing about it that I can truly compliment.

But, I can’t get over that this “road movie” doesn’t even get to the road trip until two thirds of the way through. Kun becomes more than just a sound engineer on the student film production, and winds up being the chauffeur for the film’s director and actor. Kun seems to become slightly more responsible with his work duties as the story goes on, but it happens at a glacial pace, and then he just gets himself into even deeper trouble again.

I’m sure there are nuances I’m missing, particularly with Kun’s detached girlfriend with her own ambitions, his police officer father, and his schoolteacher mother. I was too busy trying to stay awake to retain them as well as I’m sure the director would have liked. I’ll credit Striding Into the Wind with this much: the characters feel quite naturally like real people. It’s just, they feel like definitively average, if authentic, people, which renders them fundamentally uninteresting.

*The movie-within-a-movie isn’t all that compelling either.*

Overall: C+