I had lost much of my interest in Zhang Yimou, the slow, methodical director whose films were often awash with haunted characters behind gorgeous backdrops. He had veered hard into commercial territory, helming projects that felt bloated and uninteresting. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised by One Second, a quiet drama about a desperate man looking for both a literal and figurative escape in the years following Mao Zedong’s failed Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine.

Set in a remote desert town, One Second is Zhang’s tribute to film. Moving pictures and sound have just been introduced to the general population in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. For many of the citizens it was their only source of entertainment and contact with the outside world. The films were always attached to a government-approved newsreels espousing the virtues of hard work in order to build a prosperous communist country, but the celluloid itself is also valuable because it can be manufactured into more practical things, such as lampshades to dim lighting.

Orphan Liu (Liu Haocun, in a strong film debut) manages to steal one of the reels for this very reason, but it also happens to be the reel that the unnamed main character, a fugitive (Zhang Yi), wants to see the most. It is Newsreel No. 22, and he’s been told it contains footage of his daughter, whom he had left behind years ago after running into trouble. The fugitive chases Orphan Liu into the next town like Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, where they draw the attention of the local projectionist, Mr. Movie (Fan Wei), who is distraught because he can’t show the film without Newsreel No. 22, and the rest of the reels had been damaged by dust and wind.

One Second was pulled from release following its original release date in 2020. The version screened internationally, including at VIFF, is an edited version that reportedly had cut some of its original scenes due to China’s censorship laws. It is impossible to gauge exactly what was lost, but its 104-minute runtime still covers all of the important aspects of the characters and plot, and the story is well told.

It doesn’t feel like Zhang is saying anything political in particular, though certain aspects can be seen as satire – Mr. Movie is a good comrade, but also a good opportunist who doubles as the town’s unofficial mayor – and Zhang’s portrayal of the difficult life of a working-class peasant is historically accurate. The frigid elements force Orphan Liu and the fugitive to work harder toward their goals, and their desperation is part of the film’s comedy.

It’s nice to get a reprieve from some of China’s big-budget films laden with special effects. Zhang’s films had grown to be more commercial than ever, reaching an unforgettable low point with The Great Wall (2016), but One Second is definitely worth your time. It’s a film about difficult times when good things were hard to come by and how humanity shines through, and intentional or not, a good reminder of the current times we live in as well.

One Second gets three and a half stars out of four.