The Breaking Ice 2024

Li Haofeng, Haoran Liu, a quiet young financier from Shanghai, travels to Yanji, a cold border city in northern China near North Korea, for a friend’s wedding. The scene at the celebration has old friends joking about his expensive watch, yet he keeps his reactions subdued, drifting through the moment with an even-keeled calm. When a hospital calls about a missed psychiatric appointment, he insists they have the wrong number, choosing silence over any excuse. On the balcony, as he contemplates the world from the edge, a tour bus glides into view and a subtle shift begins: he will join a local tour group, stepping into a different kind of daily rhythm.

There, he meets Nana, Dongyu Zhou, a tour guide who carries a restlessness with her job. Nana’s friend Xiao, a local cook, asks her out to dinner, and the trio’s dynamic starts to bloom in a curious mix of practicality and longing. Nana, in particular, seems drawn to Haofeng’s refined, cosmopolitan life in Shanghai, a life that has also felt the weight of the pandemic on both of their occupations. As the evening unfolds with drinks and shared stories, Nana and Xiao coax Haofeng toward a lighter moment: a dance that unlocks a vulnerability he does not usually reveal. The mood is intimate but measured, a quiet curiosity growing between them as the conversation loops between humor, longing, and a few unspoken questions.

The next day disrupts the calm: Haofeng misses his flight home, and the three of them decide to extend their time away with a countryside ride. Nana returns home late, and the night ends with an unplanned moment of closeness between her and Haofeng. The morning brings a tense discovery—Nana bears a small scar on her ankle, a detail that makes her uneasy and hints at a past she does not fully reveal. Xiao’s younger cousin teases Xiao about his relationship with Nana, a moment of teasing that is brushed aside by Xiao, who tells the younger relative to study hard and not follow a reckless path. Xiao then arrives at Nana’s home to regroup and offers to show Haofeng around again. The trio wanders through a bookstore, where Haofeng is drawn to depictions of the Changbai Mountains and Heaven Lake, while Nana lingers on a book about figure skating. Later, in a nightclub, Haofeng remains in his seat while Nana and Xiao step onto the dance floor; he breaks down and cries in private, a moment of emotional release that underscores the complexity of their connections. As the night ends, they drunkenly plot a future visit to Heaven Lake, a promise that does not fully resolve the tension between them.

Nana’s long-lost friend appears unexpectedly, shedding light on a past Nana had left behind. It becomes clear that Nana once shone as a gifted figure skater, a past she seems to have buried beneath the weight of distance and silence. The friend presses Nana about her sudden withdrawal from friends, including their coach who died and Nana’s mother, a reminder of the familial and emotional costs tied to her choices. In parallel, Xiao drives Haofeng back to the hotel, and Haofeng asks Xiao to stay with him because he does not want to face the night alone. Eventually he falls asleep, the weight of the day dissolving into quiet respite.

On the way toward the Changbai Mountains, Haofeng shares a local legend about a bear that becomes human, a story that underscores themes of transformation and longing in the journey ahead. Over dinner, Xiao, in a rare moment of candor, mentions a wanted criminal who is worth more money than he has ever seen. A suspicious figure lingers outside the restaurant, but Xiao remains passive, choosing not to engage. The trio then embarks on a long, snowy hike toward Heaven Lake, only to be halted by a ranger’s warning: the fog is too dense to safely see the site, and they should turn back. Standing at the edge of a cliff, Haofeng almost steps forward, but a timely bear sighting interrupts the moment and the group retreats. The bear sniffs Nana before eventually moving on, a brief, eerie interlude that lingers in the memory of the travelers. They return to their routine, drinking again to offset the moment’s tension.

Back at Nana’s home, Xiao wakes to find Haofeng and Nana asleep together, a tableau that compresses unresolved feelings into a single, quiet scene. When Xiao prepares to leave, Nana hugs him, preserving a thread of closeness while acknowledging the distance that remains. Haofeng leaves his watch behind and returns to Shanghai, stepping away from the trip’s tangled emotions. Xiao says goodbye to his cousin, then makes a late, reckless choice—attempting to crash into an oncoming truck, only to veer away at the last second with a small, defiant smile. Nana phones her family, telling them she will come home for Chinese New Year, and she retrieves her old skates, a symbol of a past identity that she may be ready to revisit, or perhaps simply to hold onto as a memory of who she once was. The journey closes on a note of quiet ambiguity, a moment of reflection about the paths chosen and those left behind, and the way time can fold longing, memory, and the possibility of change into one’s ongoing story.