‘Girls on Wire’ Review: Two Cousins Reunited on a Chinese Film Set Are Trapped in a Melodrama of Their Own Making

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Flying high in one of the world’s most male-dominated film industries, Chinese writer-director Vivian Qu follows up her acclaimed 2017 drama “Angels Wear White” with the Berlin-competing “Girls on Wires.” Focused on the uneasy reunion between two estranged cousins who team up to beat the cycle of drug abuse and debt that’s been dragging their family down for decades, this is ambitious, moral-minded cinema for a mainstream Chinese audience, and as such, it seems only fair to forgive the kind of hammy acting and manipulative melodrama Americans accept from Clint Eastwood and Tyler Perry movies.

There’s something charmingly old-fashioned in the way this movie tries to move viewers, using flashbacks to memories between cutie-pie kiddos Fang Di and Tian Tian — who were raised almost like sisters in Chongqing — to ensure the adversity they face as adults produces the expected quantity of tears.

At the same time, the novelty comes in setting the present-day portion in Xiangshan Film City, a vast production facility where Fang Di (Wen Qi) works as a stuntwoman.

Doing so not only brings audiences into the filmmaking process, but gives the story a clever behind-the-scenes feel, à la “Day for Night,” as Fang Di’s action-movie training prepares her to “star” in a real-life thriller.