The 2018 Chinese movie Animal World (动物世界) will play in Pittsburgh from June 29. A Hollywood Reporter review shares some of the plot:
When Zheng Kaisi (Li Yifeng, a TV actor who won awards for his role in the film Mr. Six) is introduced as a disheartened floor entertainer in a clown suit at a gaming arcade, he seems to be suffering from a full-on superhero complex. Rapidly cross-cutting between the regular-guy Kaisi and his evil-looking clown persona, Han puts the audience on a puzzling trail. Is the protagonist human or superhuman?The movie, also starring Michael Douglas, was the sixth-highest grossing film in China during its opening week. It will play at AMC Loews Waterfront, with tickets and showtime information now available online via Fandango. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.
In the first of several big action scenes, Kaisi morphs into a leering killer clown along the lines of the Joker, with two comically colored swords carried on his back. The people around him on a subway car transform into gooey animal-like monsters that spurt syrupy blood when hit by the clown’s martial arts attacks.
These are soon revealed as the violent fantasies of an impotent teenager, taking place in Kaisi’s head as he sits in a hospital ward visiting his mother, who has been in a coma for years. (Explanation comes later.) He has become acquainted with young nurse Qing (Zhou Dongu of SoulMate) but hasn’t the money to pursue her. In fact, it’s she who loans him the cash to pay for his mom’s care.