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
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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
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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 LCSnoogs ★★★★

This was really good. It isn't much of a comedy, so it's weird to see that in the list of genres. That's not an issue because it's still a good drama with multiple compelling, interconnected story lines. The inclusion of the white man was a nice touch. It's the freshest story line and it's amusing to see him get exploited for his whiteness. Candy's story line felt the most familiar. I've seen too many stories of someone fighting for their house against a large company that wants to buy their land in recent memory. I kept thinking about Better Call Saul during it.
Review by Figueroa ★★

Sátira alegrona, hasta cantan, al desarrollo urbanista chino. El collage de estilos como el estilo de la ciudad neoliberal. Pero no es tan buena, tonos disímiles de las actuaciones
Review by tylersimon ★★★★

Cathy Yan can legit direct, moves the camera well, gets great performances, constructs the story like a vet, and has a wicked sense of humor
Why’d we have to wait two years for this release??
Review by Rosalie Kicks ★★★★½

Cathy Yan is fantastic. Please give her all the money to make all the films.
Great script. Great storytelling. Beautiful visuals. This is YES and definitely worth the subscription to Mubi.
Review by Paul Perkins ★★★½

Cathy Yan really is an impressively visual filmmaker. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Review by Anton Reyes ★★★½

would've personally loved this if it showed more of the character's antics (Old Wang's investments, Zhen's scams, whatever the fuck Sean was up to). also needed more Meng Li. surely would've been a banger mini-series though.
Review by George Clune Clarkson

A light and comic satire about the rapidly modernising and expanding China, told with an ensemble cast, covering different aspects at it. The film looks at wealth and materialism in Chinese society and the influence and courting of the "West", and the meeting of the two cultures. It casts a mildly wry eye on it, as opposed to a scathing one.
It's ultimately a comedy, so the insights and consequences of this rapidly expanding approach into capitalism and the people who might get left behind by it, aren't examined in as much depth as something like Jia Zhangke's Ash is the Purest White, or Wang Xiaoshuai's So Long, My Son. This takes a step further back from the deep consequences,…
Review by Andreas Aaberge Eide ★★★

Noe famlende i midtpartiet, og noen karakterer kunne vært sløyfet (én hovedperson som får ganske mye skjermtid tar ett eneste valg ila filmen og det er å prøve å kjøpe en melon), men alt i alt en stilig, om enn en smule på nesen skildring av et ekstremt materialistisk samfunn i så rask utvikling at det mister sjelen sin. Karaoke er et fiffig filmatisk grep.
Review by jintro ★★★★

China is an interesting place at the moment. It has evolved from a third world country to a (very flawed) middle class economy in more or less a generation. It is no surprise that Chinese cinema sees dramatic opportunity in this clash between modern and traditional.
In this one you get a farmer, his sister a successful small business owner but clinging to their ancestral home, a Western project developer, an poor young guy trying to make ends meet and a young rich girl. There lives intersect in different ways. There is not really anything resolved in the end, the culture clash is pretty much unresolvable I guess, but we get to spend some time with them and their daily troubles.
It is all told in an engaging way, drama with some light-heartedness build in, and is quite good looking too. An enjoyable watch.
Review by ashingleriv ★★★★½

Highly effective socially satirical dramedy that follows multiple characters as they navigate modern day Shanghai, China. There is a strong bond between the sense of the specific place and timely global ideas and conflicts addressed therein. I will not forget Director Cathy Yan's unique and talent, am looking forward to future feature films from her!
Review by Andrea Fontana ★★★½

Non mi viene in mente un altro film in grado di fotografare con altrettanta lucidità, consapevolezza dei mezzi, coinvolgente scrittura e analisi trasversale gli importanti cambiamenti che stanno avvenendo in Cina e l’impatto che questi hanno sul tessuto sociale del Paese.
Tra humor e delicatezza, Dead Pigs è lo spaccato di una nazione in cui il capitalismo perverso sta prendendo piede in una forma inedita e ancor più spietata. A farne le spese sono le emozioni e il senso per le piccole cose.
Review by anhkos ★★★

busboy and jaded rich girl story line was week