Set largely in Yanji, a city well known for its proximity to North Korea, The Breaking Ice revolves around young tourist guide Nana (Zhou). During one of her rounds, she strikes up a conversation with Haofeng (Liu Haoran), a glum man seen repeatedly ignoring phone calls demanding him to receive psychiatric treatment.

After spending the night with Nana, Haofeng soon forms a gang of three with her and her happy-go-lucky suitor Xiao (Qu Chuxiao).

Visiting various places that defy long-running representations of the rugged region – from Nana’s small but neatly appointed flat, to very modern eateries and nightspots – the characters’ painful backgrounds are slowly unveiled.

A big scar across Nana’s ankles points to the “recklessness” with which she derailed her own future as a stellar ice skater. After a meek admission of having a high-flying career in finance in Shanghai, Haofeng mumbles about his loathing of his hometown. Xiao, meanwhile, tells his new best friend about his origins in Sichuan and his relocation to Yanji.

But that’s just as much as we could glean from the film about their inner conflicts, even after their final climactic trek up Changbai Mountain to fulfil Haofeng’s unexplained wish.

Compared to the character studies of Ilo Ilo or Wet Season, The Breaking Ice offers just slight pickings about the characters’ schisms, many of which could very well be representative of the angst of Chinese millennials – there’s actually a throwaway line when the trio joke about literally “lying flat” as they rest on one of their outings.

Such shortcomings are papered over by Zhou’s magnetic turn, as she brings home the complexities of a character whose hard-boiled demeanour conceals a broken psyche.

Qu is natural enough for a character that’s endearing from the very get-go, but Liu is weighed down by his quirky moustache and a miserabilist air that is perhaps more in place in either a social realist drama or a film noir.

Another star of the show is Taiwanese cinematographer Yu Jing-pin, who veers well away from her visceral handheld camerawork in Derek Tsang Kwok-cheung’s Better Days (also starring Zhou) with shots soaked in poetic beauty.

Her work, combined with the characters’ on-screen camaraderie, has surely injected a lot of warmth into The Breaking Ice, but the potential of the characters and the story itself remain buried in permafrost.

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