Dead Pigs

2018 ‘海上浮城’ Directed by Cathy Yan

A pig farmer, a busboy, a salon owner, an expat architect and a jaded rich girl cross paths as thousands of dead pigs float down the Yangtze River toward Shanghai.

Vivian Wu Haoyu Yang Li Meng Mason Lee David Rysdahl Zazie Beetz

Alternative Title

Haishang Fucheng

drama comedy

121 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Baker 6

Really happy I had the opportunity to check this out on the big screen at the Atlanta Film Festival.
Director Cathy Yan is a perfect choice for the Harley Quinn feature. Great characters and tone. Builds tension well. Wonderful use of color.
Federico Cesca’s cinematography is gorgeous. Couldn’t even find production designer’s name on IMDb but kudos to whoever it is.
Executive produced by Zhangke Jia and stars Men Li from A Touch of Sin.
No US distributor yet.
Review by MK ★★★★½ 1

Cathy Yan's directional debut 'Dead Pigs' is A compelling but simple and relatable story, The cinematography is top-tier along with it’s extravagant soundtrack.. even subtitles is creatively done here I'm soo happy to finally seeing this movie. I've Waited for this long. If you have MUBI subscription definitely check this out.
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★

Dead Pigs is a quirky satire on the ever-modernising, rapidly developing China which has emerged in recent years. Through a large cast of characters, it explores the huge distance in society between the rural poor and the urban Westernised world being created. Rising materialism and changing economic forces run rampant. Dead Pigs centres on this bizarre mixture in a nation plowing ahead with growth. As the West becomes stagnant, Dead Pigs ironically depicts a Chinese idolisation of the West. Individualism over family is a part of this perhaps. One person stands up against the changes, but she is just an individual against a ginormous force that comes from all power centres, economic and social.
Dead Pigs is a reminder that…
Review by ˗ˏˋ Liam ˊˎ˗ ★★★★½ 2

cathy yan's Magnolia (1999) moment!!! this is such an impressive debut i'm in AWE
Review by ♦️•Lily•💋 ★★★★½

Any finger raised against Cathy Yan shall crumble
Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★½ 2

Vegan alert:
Yes, there were a ton of dead pigs in this film.
Watched on: MUBI
Click here to receive 30 free days of MUBI:
mubi.com/t/web/global/3m4uuw2
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★ 2

Dead Pigs is the directorial feature from writer and director Cathy Yan. Yan was born in China but grew up mostly in the US, providing her with a cross-cultural aspect to the story that contrives to ask what a community is willing to relinquish in the unshackled individual quest of wealth. It pursues a cast of compelling characters that seamlessly overlap with one another in and around Shanghai and commences with a strange epidemic where pigs are dying en masse for reasons unknown.
It's an absurdist satire that's a commentary on modern China that doesn't carry itself too seriously. Thankfully though, it's entirely free from the tiresomeness that the director generated with Birds of Prey - the uncalled for spin-off…
Review by I. Simon ★★★½

Honestly think it’s highly unfortunate and greatly speaks to the commercial viability of independent and foreign cinema that this only got released in the US (and three years after its Sundance premiere, if I may add) because of the mostly positive reception of BIRDS OF PREY and not because it’s a film that deserves to be seen, but I guess that’s better than it not being released here at all. (Speaking of, this article is a great read: https://www.indiewire.com/2021/02/cathy-yan-dead-pigs-birds-of-prey-next-movie-1234616115/)
Anyway, Dead Pigs is pretty good! It does feel like a first feature at points and while I’m aware it’s Robert Altman-influenced, I do feel it could’ve benefitted from a tighter edit. That said, Cathy Yan shows more than a fair amount…
Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★½ 1

There's a whole lot happening onscreen in Dead Pigs: from how it utilizes the occurrences surrounding the 2013 Huangu River dead pigs incident to tell a bigger story of how people living within Shanghai and the impact it had on their lives - and the way in which these narrative threads all tie together. But also, Yan never turns a blind eye at the ways in which these people have embraced the capitalistic ways of the east and how it comes at odds with the past. Beneath all of that, we still see people looking for a sense of meaningful connection in a directionless world, and soon we see a more touching portrait in Dead Pigs.
And visually, this is…
Review by Soumajit Nath ★★★½ 2

75/100
******************************************************

In 2013, thousands of pig carcasses were found in the Huangpu River dumped by poverty-stricken farmers who couldn’t pay the disposal fees, noone didn't have any slightest idea how and why those pigs' have died. Inspired a little bit by this real life incident, Chinease filmmaker Cathy Yan(who two years later went to Hollywood to direct Birds of Prey, starring Margot Robbie) made a film about class confliction, corruption in modern China with subtle hints of how her country's people are embracing the capitalistic influences of east. And this 2 hours long film really makes me feel that I might atleast can give a try to BIRDS OF PREY!! As I always ignore superhero movies..

DEAD PIGS is…
Review by Owen ★★★½ 1

i believe in Cathy Yan supremacy!
Review by Jacob Knight ★★★★ 2

A rather wonderful hybrid of Johnnie To and Robert Altman, weaving multiple characters, themes and tones into one dizzying tableau that takes on everything from capitalism to the thickness of familial blood and the meaning of “home” (complete with massive doses of neon and karaoke cued musical numbers). Give Cathy Yan all the studio money now.

Recent reviews

Review by anhkos ★★★

busboy and jaded rich girl story line was week
Review by zinzinzine ★★★½

pretty fun
Review by Joe Manning

Really liked this! I'm excited to see what Cathy Yan makes next.
Review by tiredhaha

At first I was annoyed that it was a foreign language film with an American gaze (which made sense later when I found out the director was born in China but grew up in the US) but i realised how universal the story and characters are: people don’t like change, exploitation of the lower classes by the upper classes, feeling like an outsider and the good ol’ tale of development. All these characters living simultaneously start crossing paths, bringing about wonderful tales of love and human connection; in the end where the sister and brother share a meal was my personal favourite :’)
With globalisation on the constant rise I’m quite excited to witness more of such multi cultural films in the years to come, hopefully bringing in more and more diverse gazes
Review by dylanfugel ★★★★½

loose and lived-in and extremely funny without being a straight-up comedy is basically my favourite type of movie. so many great sketch vignettes in this.
Review by Alan A. Peche ★★★½

I'm not sure about a lot of things
Review by Alex F ★★★★

Formidable debut — sic transit gloria mundi bitch! Vivian Wu is the baddest bitch.
Review by Dou Dou ★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Impressive work as a debut feature by Cathy Yan. Vivian Wu is as marvelous as ever; having her and other main casts speak Shanghai dialect throughout is authentic and definitely rewarding. The overuse of vibrant colors feeds into the absurdist comedy as it is; the characters are "noisy" but ultimately engaging.
The issues Cathy Yan touches upon are uncomfortably realistic, and the film is a chaotic discussion of class, capitalism and East-meets-West. I must applaud the actor who plays the watermelon lady for delivering the superb performance. Also, Li Meng plays herself quite well ;)
Cathy Yan seems to be a fan of long dolly shots, which seems to help establish each character well at the beginning. Some segments are edited in an unnatural way, but harmless. The flamboyant use of music is distracting; I struggle to understand the need to have a final choir done in such a cheesy way...
Review by Marcelo Paredes ★★★½

Divertida crítica a la modernización de China que está consciente de su absurdo y no desperdicia ninguna de sus líneas narrativas las cuales convergen de manera orgánica. La directora es la misma que hizo Birds of Prey con lo cual se comprueba, una vez más, que Hollywood es el problema, ya que claramente había alguien talentosa detrás.
MUBI
Review by itsmeonline

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

the end just really threw me why are we all happy she give up and let the house be destroyed why does a sing-along follow and then the movies over also all the reveals at the end were extremely on the nose for me. idk what i have to say about the rest of the movie frankly but after some scattered and stunning moments throughout it left a weird aftertaste.
Review by MkDraco ★★★★

80% Dead Pigs is a huge suprise. This movie came out of nowhere. How aren't more people talking about it? It is the directorial debut of the director of Birds of Prey. I haven't seen Birds of Prey because it is so divisive, but now I will definitely check it out. Even if you weren't a fan of Birds of Prey I would look into Dead Pigs on Mubi.
Review by Kieran Battams ★★★★

At first whilst I was watching this it had me thinking, what do all of these numerous characters and plot threads have to do with eachother? Where is the connection? But actually that is what made this film so good and work so well for me.
In that sense, it's a strange comparison to make, but it reminded me of the classic episode of The Simpsons '22 Short Films About Springfield' in it's method of storytelling. There isn't really any other comparison I can think of because as far as i'm aware not many films are set out like this, but it also isn't just random things happening for the sake of it because each plot thread has something to…