Gone are the days of glory for Chinese cinema when films like In The Mood For Love and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon created a lingering international impact.

The Breaking Ice, directed by Anthony Chen (whose Ilo Ilo in 2013 was a heartwarmer), was selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival 2023. It was also selected as the Singaporean entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

The Breaking Ice is a lovely little lament on lost love with three very lonely characters bonding during the tourist season in the town of Yanji in China.

Nana (Zhou Dongyu) is a local tourist guide. Haofeng (Liu Haoran) is a lonely, rich, miserably unhappy tourist whose wristwatch is insanely expensive (this, for some reason, we are told repeatedly). And of course, the inevitable happens.

But wait. It is not as simple and easy as the touristic romance may seem. Director Anthony Chen gives the two principal actors a whole lot of space to lean into their sudden mutual fondness without letting the violins in the background get in the way. There is a strong sense of truthfulness in the Nana-Haofeng relationship, bolstered by the presence of a third party who accompanies the couple’s exploration of the snowcapped hinterland and their frozen hearts which the landscape manifests.

All of these lucid ideas flow organically from the plot. There is none of the Jejune let’s-give-them-a-deep-romance thrust in the narrative. The dialogues and situations flow so fluently that it almost seems as though the couple decided to tell their characters’ stories of mutual attraction without the help of cinematic conventions.

The addition of a third character Han Xiao (Qu Chuxiao) furnishes an added layer of keen emotions to the central romance. Han Xiao has obviously been in love with Nana forever. They are small-town sweethearts who everyone presumes will marry each other someday. This is no ordinary lovelorn Romeo in the shadows. Han Xiao loves Nana deeply and is waiting that someday, she will reciprocate his feelings. In the meanwhile, he takes her sudden attraction for the mysterious stranger in town in his stride. Not once does Han Xiao get resentful. There is a reservoir of pain and hurt, but no resentment.

The actor playing Han Xiao is brilliant at conveying smothered ardour. He is a far better actor than the lead Liu Haoran whose Richie-Rich act lacks the quality of struggle in comparison. Han Xiao’s is the best silent-love act I’ve seen, even better than Kamal Haasan in Ramesh Sippy’s Sagar.

Zhou Dongyu’s Nana is no Dimple Kapadia. She isn’t meant to be. The actress conveys a stirring warmth and whimsy without getting over-cute.

This brings me to the flaws in this otherwise well-executed love triangle. Though the process of setting up the triangular bonding in a snow-capped town is moving, at times deeply so, the narrative grows scattered as the plot goes out in pursuit of Nana’s dreams as a ballerina.

I have no interest in what she wants to be. I want to know if Nana chose rightly in the end. There is silence on that.