Nina Wu (2019)
Review of Nina Wu (灼人秘密), directed by Midi Z
I have a tendency to start out my blog posts by saying I found XYZ movie, book, or show by spiraling into a deep hole of going through someone’s Instagram highlights and seeing their recommendations, or combing The New York Times through the free subscription I get through my local library.
Not with Nina Wu. This introduction is going to be pretty short and to the point, as the way I found this movie was very straightforward. I ended up scrolling through Mubi one night as I was looking for something to watch, and the image they used to show this movie drew me in immediately.
It was this fierce woman in red lipstick holding a knife up to her throat defiantly, and I thought she was such a badass woman. I wanted to be her. So I watched the movie!
Here’s my review.
Nina Wu is chasing after her dream of being an actress, but it is a massive struggle to achieve the success she thinks she wants.
As you can probably gather from above, the protagonist in this movie is Nina Wu. At the beginning of the movie we see that she is an actress and has not quote-on-quote made it yet, as her casting agent calls her in for a potential role that could make or break her career.
There are some caveats to this role, however: they are requesting the actress to appear in the film fully nude from the front. And if you’re into cinema and movie history, you’re going to know that they typically don’t film actresses in this way—they typically only show the breasts, not the entire person.
Especially in East Asian cinema, this is very uncommon. Naturally, Nina is very hesitant about this, but ends up showing to the audition anyways.
She lands the part, but the process of filming and making this film is not going to be as easy as one may think it is. This fictional movie is set in the seventies and in almost every scene that is shown, Nina is surrounded by men. Nina is completely and utterly devoted to this role and her character to the point where she is shown accepting the abuse the director is throwing at her.
He literally grabs her at one point and puts her in a chokehold, something very noticeable as he isn’t shown being as toxic and harmful to her male co-stars. Nina is shown to be suffering from depression in the movie, so this definitely cannot be helping with her mindset.
In one extended scene where she is being chased by the camera, she delivers an angry, resentful monologue while staring straight at the camera and the viewer. She is holding a knife, and is ready to kill herself right then and there. The camera pivots and shows her male co-star right behind where the operator is standing, showing how this is a bit of a gotcha moment in the movie. She has literally become so in tune with her character that without the guise of the movie being made directly being shown, e.g. a film crew, one may believe that this long take is real.
The movie succeeds, especially with Nina’s acting. She has become a star, and there are several scenes setting this up as she is interviewed by the press when it comes to her acting and inspirations.
However, because she was willing to do what it takes and put up with the men’s actions working on the film, this is a horrible setup for what the rest of her career is potentially going to look like. This is not a happy film about what it means to achieve your dreams and be happy.
Nina ends up achieving what she set out to do when she moved to the capital of Taiwan to become an actress, and ends up being exploited in the process. It took her six years to land this role, making her a little desperate in the process, but when she accepts the vulnerability of her situation, it all comes back to bite her eventually.
Despite giving the performance of her career so far, Nina is set up to fail from the beginning. She doesn’t have connections.
We, as the viewer, think she’s not even going to get cast in this movie at first because the director—who is a complete and utter asshole—crosses of her headshot during the audition process.
We see how she begins to lose her touch and grip on reality, ultimately descending into a state where she doesn’t know where the character ends and she begins. The monologue she gives in the audition room begins to feel like a bit of a prophecy, dooming Nina into a life where she is never going to be happy with the work she is doing and the people she ends up being surrounded by.
Overall Thoughts
This is a well-shot movie. I can see how people definitely won’t like this one, especially if they are a man unwilling to confront their privilege in the long run.
Some of the scenes are very long and drawn out, and I will admit that I ended up having a difficult time trying to watch this movie all the way through. There’s some redundancy once we leave the arc where Nina is filming the movie, and I don’t think the final section of this movie does enough work pacing and emotionally wise to pick up the pieces and intensity when Nina was in that filming environment.
I finished this movie because I genuinely felt for Nina, and considering the actress who portrayed her was a part of the screenwriting process, I don’t doubt there were some personal elements put into this. I recommend watching this movie and giving it a try at least once.
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