The changing landscape of the new media frontier is reckless, reactionary, and thrives on the manipulation of truth and the exploitation of unsuspecting individuals to maximize likes, shares, comments, and subscriptions. Discourses become fabricated, and the struggle to control the flow of information fragments an increasingly polarized world; here is a landscape where videos and photographs become spun to fit agendas, footage lifted out of context and prescribed a narrative designed for nefarious purposes. Now more than ever, society can no longer take what it sees at face value, and what is dispensed as fact can no longer exist outside the realm of scrutiny. This is nothing new of course, but within the opening twenty minutes of Xin Yukun's latest film ‘Trending Topic', a film he began crafting after realizing how long he was spending on social media apps, this world emerges from beyond the veil to expose the ugliness riddling inside this explosive industry.
Trending Topic is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival 2024
Upon hearing the subject of her company Miao's Whimsy's latest viral video campaign – a “bully” pushing a classmate down the stairs – has attempted to end her own life, cold but calculating Chen Miao (Zhou Dongyu assembles her team of bloggers to thwart any backlash by controlling the narrative and shirking any responsibility on their part. But after being told by her co-partner He Yan (Yang Song) she has crossed a line, she opens the mail the girl, Zhang Xiaosui (Yuwen Zhang) had sent: a handwritten message in Chen's book detailing she had in fact been raped by the chief financier of her school (who also happens to bankroll Miao's Whimsy) and had confronted the video's victim about being ambushed in a sting at a hotel. When she attempts to break this revelation to her readers, she is strong-armed out of her company by Hengshi Group's chairman Yue Peng (Hong Yuan) and initiates a cat-and-mouse battle to expose Henjin's boss through a series of social media campaigns.
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It is here where Yukun and writers Yang Weiwei and Ye Qin all but abandon ship for a far more predictable route. What began as a scathing indictment of contextual manipulation and the ugly side of trending content in a bid to score up user engagement, ‘Trending Topic' descends down a David-and-Goliath rabbit hole of seemingly endless skirmishes to win public opinion, with both Chen and Yue deploying both aggressive and underhanded tactics to undermine and destroy each other. Every time Chen believes she has outmanoeuvred them, the Hengshi Group Yue are quick to dismantle her efforts, culminating in a video interview being dropped when the interviewee's safety becomes compromised. Though Dongyu's turn from cutthroat editor to the underdog dead-set on exposing the dark truth does require some suspension of disbelief, her steely performance somewhat succeeds in retaining the film's edge, which was lost after its focal shift.
The further the film mutates into this albeit entertaining piece of popcorn fodder – complete with Chekhov's Gun-style twists revealing its easily anticipated ending – the further it forgets at the heart of its struggle is a victim whose life has been upended and hangs on by a thread. Despite her deteriorating state, she is still being used both as a bargaining chip and for content to fuel the dueling parties' agenda; while this may be what Yukun intended, reminding viewers that the media's actions does have consequences on the very real people they cover, it feels cheap and insulting for anyone who has sadly gone through what Xiaosui has suffered. Had ‘Trending Topic' retained its opening trajectory, its impact would have been devastating; instead, not only does its message drown for the sake of cinematic tropes and conventions but Xiaosui's fate feels insignificant within the bigger picture at play.
While Yizeng Liu's cinematography excels in grounding the film close to the conspiracy thriller roots it endeavors to get close to after the first third, as does the editing and pacing – which alongside Dongyu's performance is instrumental in keeping viewers invested in an otherwise formulaic film – it is Hank Lee's pulsing score where the film's elevation has the biggest potential. Reminiscent of Tomandandy's cinematic work and making effective use of the clacking of keyboards both cellular and desktop, the Taiwanese-born Canadian's score and sound design taps into the domain of which the film's battles are fought, firmly cementing it into the realm of cyberspace which the narrative attempts to free itself from.
What could have been China's #MeToo pièce de résistance, however, wanders too far from its course, tenuously grasping the hand of the message it is vying to shout from the rooftops. While Yukun's attention to detail – the use of industry-appropriate language and new media mentality – runs rampant throughout, his vision gets bogged down by its ambition; instead of highlighting an all-too real occurrence for many women, ‘Trending Topic's predictability and reliance on cinematic tropes ensures the film pulls its own plug in lieu of a figurative bombshell taking China's elite to the cleaners. Though it nevertheless plays its ‘thriller' hand well it comes at too high a price for an effective pay-off. All too often there are no winners in this landscape of questionable truth, only losers who pay the ultimate price; though ‘Trending Topic's villainous organisation does receive its comeuppance, it feels tacked on, as inauthentic a victory as the thousands, if not millions, of dollars paid in hush money for the status quo to continue thriving and keep the shadows locked up firmly in the closet.
