Winter of discontent

Arthouse tale of adolescent anguish and a murder draws acclaim for debutant director, Xu Fan reports.

When director Liang Ming returned to his hometown city of Yichun in Heilongjiang province during the Spring Festival holiday in 2012, he didn't hang out with friends or join in family feasts as usual.

Instead, Liang chose to stay alone. Driven by a passion for writing, which Liang describes as his way of "talking to the world", he wrote the script for Wisdom Tooth.

Inspired by real stories he heard as a youngster, the film interweaves the tension between a pair of siblings, with a mysterious murder in a coastal city in Northeastern China, touching on various social issues in the process, including China's hukou (household registration) system and environmental issues.

Believing that it bears a similarity to South Korean director Lee Changdong's Burning and Chinese director Lou Ye's Spring Fever, the film has been praised by viewers and critics alike, receiving recognition from around 30 film festivals at home and abroad.

After scooping the best actor award at the Macao International Movie Festival and two more awards at the Pingyao International Film Festival, Wisdom Tooth opened across the country in thousands of member theaters of the China National Arthouse Film Alliance on Nov 27.