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Wild Grass
Movie

Wild Grass

2020 • Unknown

Woke Score
1
out of 10

Plot

In the 1990s, two girls and a boy enter a booming society with the hope of fulfilling their many dreams.

Overall Series Review

Wild Grass is a Chinese social drama set in the 1990s, detailing the intersecting lives of two young women and one young man who leave their small city for the bright lights of the booming metropolis. The film focuses on the brutal reality and despair that await them as they pursue their unfulfilled dreams. One female lead attempts to leave for Japan but is prevented after becoming involved in a tragic and exploitative incident as a dance-hall girl, while the other struggles to make her cinematic dreams come true. The male lead is an amateur musician caught up with a local mob boss. The narrative is a tragic, fragmented look at the difficulties of social mobility, with a heavy emphasis on the harsh consequences of economic ambition during a period of rapid Chinese modernization.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The film is a Chinese production featuring an entirely Chinese cast, focusing on the class and economic struggles of migrant workers moving from a small city to a large one. The conflict is based purely on individual merit, ambition, and the harsh economic realities of the 1990s in China, not on immutable characteristics or the vilification of a specific race.

Oikophobia2/10

The narrative critiques the harsh and corrupt elements of the modern, booming urban society in China that crushes the dreams of the youth. The film's critical eye is aimed at the current social-economic system and urban exploitation, not a wholesale demonization of Chinese civilization, ancestors, or heritage. The critique is focused on the pain of internal migration, which is an immediate social issue.

Feminism2/10

The female leads are depicted as victims of exploitation, tragedy, and violence in their desperate pursuit of a better life. One character becomes a dance-hall girl due to a family medical crisis and faces sexual violence. This portrayal centers on struggle and despair, countering the 'Girl Boss' trope. The male lead is not a bumbling idiot but a struggling musician dealing with the underworld, placing men and women in complementary positions of shared hardship in a predatory environment.

LGBTQ+1/10

The core plot is a social drama about dreams, hardship, and survival in the 1990s. The film contains no central theme of sexual ideology, gender theory, or the deconstruction of the nuclear family. The sexual element present is one of exploitation within the dance-hall setting, not a political or ideological centering of alternative sexualities.

Anti-Theism1/10

As a Chinese social drama, the film's conflict is rooted in social and economic struggle, not religious warfare. The narrative does not feature hostility toward Christianity or any other traditional religion, and the morality explored is one of desperate choices and societal consequence rather than a philosophical lecture on moral relativism.