Crossing A Dawn

Cities were made for falling in love. I am of the mind that the most romantic thing on this planet is roaming a city foreign to you with a soul connection. If this instantly recalls Before Sunset, that is not without reason: Crossing A Dawn, a new mainland Chinese film set between two fated martyrs of love on a single night in Beijing, verbalizes the connection itself through its dialogue. Like Before Sunset, these lovers taste the sublime beauty of a perfect night of love, knowing their magical night will forever be just a night. It’s a night they can’t forget. They roam the city smittenly looking for a little privacy—to boink, as young hot people do—and, like a jealous ex, the city keeps refusing them privacy. Instead, they talk. And they have unbridled fun. Crossing A Dawn is a lovely, sexy, and magnetic feature debut from director Zhao Badou. 

A lonely designer with a sharp jaw and sharper tongue, Xu Qiu (Sandra Ma) swipes through pictures of hot men on a dating app before abruptly leaving her couple’s massage with her best friend early to meet one of them at the supermarket. (Yep, apparently the grocery store is a place to meet dates in China.) Catfished by a middle-aged man, she is prepared to leave disappointed when she connects with the more attractive, younger man in the store that she originally mistook for the guy she thought she was going to meet. Chen Yuzhou (Edward Chen) is an aspiring novelist from the south and is leaving Beijing tomorrow morning. They have one night to light the city on fire with their desire.

Beijing pops as if evoking the neon of Wong Kar-wai, another romantic filmmaker the film makes explicit reference to (specifically, Chungking Express), and though it is one of the world’s most populous cities, Qiu and Yuzhou are like two fish in a fishbowl. Just like Jesse and Céline in Vienna in Before Sunset, the huge city empties itself to make room for their intense (and instant) connection. When the night is still young, this is mostly accomplished through Fan Chao’s (An Elephant Sitting Still) cinematography and the blocking of the actors. There are other people, sure—but it is Ma and Chen who own the screen. As the night creeps up on the two romantics, everyone else in Beijing goes to bed and they roam like they own the place. Zhao must be a romantic himself because this is exactly how falling in love feels: your whole world fits into the palm of the other.

The scene that shows this lovely myopia of falling in love best takes place in a private karaoke booth. Packed tightly into a cubicle only a tad larger than a telephone booth, Yuzhou sweetly sings a soft classical song about Journey to the West, the classical Chinese Buddhist novel. He doesn’t serenade her as much as he lets himself be fully present and fully himself in the moment. And that might be the hottest thing ever. That is certainly how Qiu sees the moment. She stares so intensely it looks like it could melt the object of her gaze. After his song, the headphones in their booth pick up the lamentable words of a forlorn lover in another booth. Between tears, his words call out to his lost lover like a prayer waiting to be answered. The (unknown) intrusion on his incredibly vulnerable and private moment clashes with the intimacy of the almost holy song.

They start the night thinking they will never see each other again. Naturally, they play the part of the magical night and fib here and there to lean into the magic. As they realize their natural chemistry, they become more honest with each other. They show their ugly sides. And their sparks still simmer. The camera seems to settle at the same time. As if the camera no longer feels the need to seduce, the visuals pop less. The Forbidden City is nonetheless impossibly beautiful at night, but there is a calmness that there wasn’t in the motorcycle riding and neon lights of the first third.

Crossing A Dawn is a brisk film about two really attractive individuals who desire connection, find it for a night, and go their own ways in the morning. The film will linger, though. Billed as Chungking Express meets Before Sunset, Zhao's first film has a little bit of the magic of both. It is unforgettable just like their night.