Angels Wear White

A complex and ambitious crime thriller set in a seaside resort town in southeast China, writer-director Vivian Qu’s Angels Wear White tackles the subjects of male privilege and impunity, especially regarding the abuse of females. Resourceful teenager Mia (Vicky Chen)—a runaway of unknown age and background, without legal identification—is working at a motel when she checks in a man accompanying two elementary schoolgirls. Security camera footage implicates the man in the possible rape of the girls. A police investigation ensues, but the suspect is a high-ranking official, which creates all sorts of obstacles. Mia, whose sole focus is on survival, finds herself in the middle of the fallout, while also being pressured by a lunkhead pimp to become a prostitute. Meanwhile, one of the young victims, Wen (Zhou Meijun), is under siege from unwanted attention, gynecological examinations, and a crazed mother who berates and hits her for having been sexually assaulted. The lone heroic figure here is a woman lawyer (Shi Ke) who offers compassion and advocacy to both Wen and Mia. The contrast here between options for girls and women, and those for men, could not be more stark: the latter instinctively circle the wagons while the former are on their own. A powerful, timely film, this is recommended. (T. Keogh)