GB / CHI / FRA 2009 1hr 43mins Dir: Xiaolu Guo Starring: Huang Lu and Geoffrey Hutchings
A young Chinese woman heads to the west for new opportunities
This international co-production drama consists of a fragmented journey told in twelve chapters and ultimately ends up in London. As Huang Lu takes a river cruise down the Thames we see a brief glimpse of Blackfriars station, but the film ends with her walking beside a dual carriageway and there appears to be an LUL station in the background. It could, however, be a bus station – help required on this one.
Blackfriars Bridge (coloured red and white) is in the background of this shot looking east along the River Thames. The railway bridge is beyond with the white protective hoarding of the station platforms prominent. HMS President sits moored on Victoria Embankment in the foreground, but it was towed to Chatham in 2016. This camera angle is somewhat deceiving. St. Paul’s Cathedral is just beyond the bridge but completely blocked from view. Instead, ‘The Gherkin’ stands proud over a mile and quarter away from this point.
As Huang Lu walks down a busy main road the building in the left hand background has a London Underground roundel sticking out prominently from the brickwork. Its identity currently escapes me.
More of the building can be seen in this view. Could it in fact be a bus station?
