Exterior, winter. Workers are carving blocks of ice from a frozen river, then stacking them onto a conveyor belt where they are transferred onto the back of a truck. The camera pans gently to a broad vista, where a bright blue tour bus is traversing a snow-blanketed bridge. Off screen, we hear a female tour guide informing her red-capped passengers that they will be returning to their hotel shortly, and thanking them for their company. The camera shifts to Nana (Zhou Dongyu). Beneath the polish of her delivery, there’s a heartfelt warmth to her gratitude.
After addressing the group, Nana returns to her seat and rubs her ankle bone. We wonder if it’s been a long day on the road, or if she’s nursing an old injury. The film draws out our process of making acquaintance with its main characters by showing us how and what to pay attention to. We catch fleeting glimpses of wintry surroundings whipping past the bus’s windows, but the group’s exact location remains a mystery. We’re isolated, but intrigued. The camera alternates between Nana and the tourists: she alone shows lingering curiosity towards the snow-filled landscape.
The opening scene of Anthony Chen’s “The Breaking Ice” (2023) sets the stage for protagonist Nana’s ambivalent relationship with the road. Against the backdrop of the Changbai Mountains, a majestic range spanning northern China and North Korea, the story follows a trio of young people connected by circumstance in the border city of Yanji. The young Shanghainese urbanite Haofeng (Liu Haoran) loses his wallet while on tour with Nana. Feeling sympathetic, she invites him for an evening out with her close friend, the candid chef Xiao (Qu Chuxiao). A night of drunken leisure causes Haofeng to miss his flight, and leads to an impromptu weekend adventure, where the youthful out-of-towners explore their icy mountainous environs together.
The road, typically seen as a symbol of freedom and possibility, becomes in Chen’s hands a source of livelihood, a site of curious exploration, and also a reason for frustration and fatigue. To be on the road—and stay on it—involves not just physical, emotional, and psychological challenges or material expenses, but also the need for fair access. The shared mobility of Nana, Haofeng, and Xiao confronts this reality. Their journey on the road, initially a liberating escape from their everyday constraints, becomes a space where they grapple with the limitations imposed by their respective societal contexts.
Even in one of the world’s most remote places, three Asian urbanites struggle to break free.
We’re probably most familiar with the road movie in American film culture, where they tend to reflect complex post-war societal sentiments and tropes, oscillating between a burgeoning confidence spurred by wartime triumph and a deep-seated crisis of faith born from the ashes of conflict and suffering. On the one hand, the euphoria of military victory often propels characters into bold adventures, a cinematic metaphor for a nation rekindling its spirit of exploration and forward momentum—in Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider” (1969), two bikers speed across the country with the drug-fuelled goal of reaching New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras. On the other, the shadow of war-induced trauma casts a more introspective mood, with protagonists embarking on solitary journeys. These films often feature aimless rebels, lost souls seeking new beginnings, individuals venturing far from home, or those fleeing various forms of oppression. These include revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, whose memoirs take compelling cinematic shape in Walter Salles’s “The Motorcycle Diaries” (2004). In reckoning with a profoundly altered world, these reflective quests serve as a poignant cultural barometer, capturing the post-war period’s emotional dichotomies.
Singapore’s relationship with the second world war, however, is one that is both postcolonial and amnesiac. Coupled with the rehearsed narrative that our land is limited and roads do not lead to open ends, this transforms the road movie in Singapore’s context. The geographical constraints of our small city-state foster a more creative interpretation of the genre, compelling filmmakers to delve into the emotional landscapes of their characters. The physical road, rather than leading to expansive, unpredictable territories, becomes a conduit for exploring internal themes of identity, questions of belonging, and notions of personal growth. This shift redefines the road movie genre, highlighting the power of physical limitations to intensify introspection and artistic innovation.
Singapore cinema has long embraced and expanded the definition of the road movie. Jasmine Ng and Kelvin Tong’s “Eating Air” (1999) and Esan Sivalingam’s “City Sharks” (2003) show individuals on journeys of self-discovery and liberation within the claustrophobic spaces of modern Singapore, while also delving into broader issues around race, class, and gender. In Alec Tok’s “A Big Road” (2009), audiences bear witness to three women’s stories as told through journeys across past and present, life and death. Questions of mortality, fecundity, and femininity are intertwined with movements across city and suburban spaces. Audiences travel to Tanzania in Sherman Ong’s “Memories of a Burning Tree” (2010), where a man searches for his mother’s grave with the help of a tour guide, a grave digger, and a metal scavenger. The film dispels easy tropes of the road movie as emancipatory, since none of them ultimately break out of the cycle of poverty.
Abbas Akbar’s “Chennai 2 Singapore” (2017) furthers this exploration, depicting a voyage that transcends national borders and delves into cultural and emotional insights. In films like Sandi Tan’s “Shirkers” (2018) and Yeo Siew Hua’s “A Land Imagined” (2018) , the road is not just a setting but a crucial element that symbolises the journey into intricate psychological, social, and economic realms. “A Land Imagined” presents the road as a backdrop to the narrative of Lok, an insomniac detective played by Peter Yu, who navigates the streets of Singapore in search of a missing Chinese migrant worker. It highlights the fleeting and often invisible lives of marginalised groups. Conversely, “Shirkers” uses the road movie genre as a meta-narrative tool. As a self-reflective documentary, it chronicles Tan’s youthful endeavour, alongside peers Jasmine Ng and Sophia Siddique, to create an indie road movie, also named “Shirkers”. Their journey, disrupted when their mentor and director Georges Cardona vanishes with all their footage, mirrors the road's unpredictability and transformative power. Rediscovered two decades later in nearly perfect condition, the original film reels bring closure to their interrupted journey, exemplifying the road movie’s potential to traverse and document evolving landscapes, both literal and metaphorical.
That said, it takes a degree of confidence in one’s craft to set a film in the Changbai Mountains, a location in stark contrast to Singapore’s tropical climate and flat landscapes. “The Breaking Ice” was an impulsive pandemic production, born out of the desire to respond to uncertainty and creative ennui. “Looking to liberate myself from my old ways, and challenge myself outside my comfort zone, I thus forced myself to make a film in an unfamiliar country, terrain, and climate,” Chen shared in the press kit for Cannes last year. It was important for him to work with actors who would be up for a collaborative adventure and in turn, shape the development of the film. This choice turned out to be creatively productive, with Chen incorporating the actors’ real-life characteristics and backgrounds into their fictional roles.
Chen’s fourth directorial feature builds on recurrent themes: being an outsider, the bonds between strangers, and the search for personal identity. He’s explored these in “Drift” (2023), where an American tour guide strikes up an unlikely friendship with a Liberian refugee; “Wet Season” (2019), tracing the murky intimacies between a teacher and her student; and “Ilo Ilo” (2013), his much-feted debut about a foreign domestic worker and the relationship she forms with her young charge.
He’s also produced two quintessential road movies marked by their charming spontaneity: more recently, He Shuming’s award-winning “Ajoomma” (2022) about Bee Hwa, a widowed, middle-aged Singaporean homemaker and ardent K-drama fan who embarks on a first solo journey to South Korea, only to be inadvertently left behind by her tour bus.
Chen also produced Kirsten Tan’s “Pop Aye” (2017), which brings the audience on a journey across Thailand with Thana (Thaneth Warakulnukroh), a middle-aged architect disillusioned with both his professional and personal life. Thana unexpectedly encounters his childhood pet elephant, the eponymous Pop Aye, on the streets of Bangkok, and is determined to take him back to their rural hometown.
Yet, if the road movie has taught us anything, it is less about where these roads lead than a question of why we turn to the road, how we move on the road, and what the road is meant to teach us about these characters, and by extension, ourselves.
In this light, “The Breaking Ice” transcends the conventional boundaries of a road movie. It becomes a meta-commentary on the journey of Singaporean filmmaking itself. It’s a narrative about navigating uncharted territories, both in the literal sense with its setting and in the figurative sense with its approach to storytelling and film production.
All three protagonists in “The Breaking Ice” find themselves on the roads of Yanji for different reasons.
We’re first introduced to Haofeng at a hotel wedding banquet: seated alone, crunching on the ice in his drink. The film gestures to his gentle but withdrawn demeanour in well-choreographed stages. First, a former classmate punctures Haofeng’s reverie with loud exclamations about how good he looks, calling attention to the ostentatious watch around his wrist, and the impressive job he must have in Shanghai. Haofeng shifts uncomfortably in his seat as he attempts to deflect the unwanted attention. But he doesn’t get a reprieve: across the table, the garrulous classmate’s wife joins the chorus, fixating on the amount Haofeng contributed in the red packet for the wedding couple.
For the rest of the banquet, Haofeng observes the festivities from the sidelines, awkward and detached. He steps out of the raucous banquet hall to answer a phone call from a mental health counselling service, where the person on the line suggests that he’s missed his appointment again. “Wrong number,” he utters, and hangs up.
The depressed Haofeng has found himself sealed into China’s patriarchal pressure cooker, where he grapples with mental health challenges stemming from the social pressures of marriage, childbearing, and high-paying jobs. As he kicks snow off a ledge contemplatively, Nana’s tour bus pulls up at the hotel lobby. This chance encounter leads to Haofeng joining her tour.
We meet Xiao in a very different context: at a wholesale market for fresh produce. Unlike Haofeng, he exudes a casual social confidence, speaking fluent Korean with his supplier, attributing his restaurant’s reduced orders to poor pandemic business, and negotiating his way into having his bill placed on a tab (yet again). His character is a compelling blend of independent broodiness, boyish charm and rugged masculinity, and he’s deeply woven into Yanji’s urban fabric. We soon learn, however, that Xiao’s nonchalance masks a deep-seated insecurity about his unfulfilled educational potential. Here is someone very different from Haofeng, with a lot more social capital but a lot less financial capital. More importantly: he knows how to operate a whole range of vehicles, which catalyses the three protagonists’ road trip later in the film.
Xiao’s motorbike becomes the first of many modes of transport that the trio uses to navigate the city.
Away from the serene and unspoiled beauty of the Changbai Mountains, the gritty and unpolished cityscape of Yanji, dotted with pockets of urban solitude, offers the audience a distinctly different milieu for exploration. The trio wanders the city’s labyrinthine streets and alleys, singling out everyday experiences over tourist encounters. When Xiao cooks for them, it’s comfort food for friends rather than the usual fare for foreigners.
The film’s shifts between rural serenity and urban vibrancy not only marks a change in scenery but also signifies a deeper journey for the characters, caught between the reflective quietude of the mountains and the raw, unfiltered realities of city life. Riding a surge of spontaneity and collective optimism, Nana, Haofeng and Xiao plan a return to nature. None of them have visited Heaven Lake, and their choice represents a readiness to confront new challenges.
Their journey begins with the transition from smooth tarmac to treacherous, snow-covered trails. A mountain ranger issues them a walkie-talkie and hints at the challenging terrain to come. Our urban youths are unfazed—each fuelled by a personal point to prove. They leave their lorry behind and decide to tackle the mountain on foot. The distant mountaintop and the relentless winds, along with the terrain's sheer verticality, become powerful metaphors for the societal challenges that young people confront in high-pressure societies such as China and Singapore, where success is traditionally measured by material wealth and professional accomplishments. Chen’s film skilfully captures this generational defiance, depicting the travellers’ ascent as a metaphorical rebellion against these ingrained expectations.
Their playful antics—rolling down slopes, creating snow angels—amidst the gruelling climb, serve as a subtle yet powerful act of resistance against the gravity of societal pressures. This culminates in their decision to “lie flat” or “躺平” (tang ping) in the snow, a poignant moment representing both a physical pause in their ascent and a symbolic end to their participating in the relentless societal rat race. This social phenomenon, which first emerged in China a few years ago, symbolises a growing disenchantment among the young. To lie flat is to advocate for a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle; a form of silent protest against the exhausting demands of modern life.
“The Breaking Ice”, from its outset, questions the relationship between mobility and socioeconomic statuses, challenging the assumption that financial wealth correlates with greater social and physical freedom.
This trope is particularly evident in Nana, whose journey in the film provides a poignant counter-narrative to the typical conceptions of mobility. Once a competitive national ice skater, Nana finds her life drastically altered after an injury ends her athletic career. As an athlete, her identity and self-worth were tied to her physical prowess. The transition from athlete to tour guide is therefore marked by a significant shift in her experience of mobility. Nana’s new role keeps her on the move, but it’s a mobility that’s confined within the parameters of her job. Her familiarity with Yanji remains superficial. She guides tourists through predetermined routes, where the landmarks are checkpoints on a circuit, rather than gateways to a deeper exploration of the city’s geographic and historical cartographies.
In contrast, Haofeng’s narrative arc illustrates how financial resources can facilitate physical mobility but do not inherently grant a deeper connection to or understanding of place. His ability to travel between cities is hindered when he loses his wallet, leaving him stranded, highlighting the precarity of relying on financial means for movement and exploration.
Paradoxically, Xiao possesses the most intimate knowledge of the city despite holding the least stable job among the three. But while he navigates the urban landscape with ease and authority, Xiao finds himself in uncharted emotional territory with Nana. His extensive social network and the freedom he enjoys from societal norms, which grant him access to less visible facets of city life, do not translate into the same success in his romantic pursuits. Xiao blames these unreciprocated feelings on his lack of formal education. This misguided belief underscores a pervasive societal norm valuing academic achievement and intellectual status, suggesting that Xiao feels his more practical, street-smart skills are inadequate in matters of the heart.
Yet, within this liminal space of the road, the trio experience a fleeting sense of liberation. Free from the confines of heteronormative family expectations, social obligations, and traditional gender or professional roles, they find a temporary peace amidst the uncertainty of their futures.
This doesn’t equate to “success”, even in conventional hiking terms. In a critical narrative twist, the walkie-talkie crackles back to life. The mountain ranger, their one link to guidance and safety, advises a retreat—there is a dense and encroaching fog obscuring the view of Heaven Lake, the group’s much-anticipated visual reward. “We’re almost there,” Nana laments. But the increasing snowfall compels the group to turn back. This decision, though a seeming surrender of their initial objective, represents a pragmatic acceptance of reality over the pursuit of an externally imposed goal. In choosing to turn back, the trio embody a nuanced and culturally specific understanding of success and failure, emphasising personal safety and collective well-being over the pursuit of an unpredictable and elusive ideal.
The end of their road trip, while marking the divergence of their paths, signifies a step closer to self-realisation for each character. This conclusion underlines the film’s message: the road, with all its complexities and contradictions, can catalyse personal growth and understanding, even within the constraints of larger social structures.
Where do our roads lead us? “The Breaking Ice” and its Singaporean cinematic counterparts demonstrate our dynamic relationship with the road and the kind of agencies that may unfold both within and outside the lines on the tarmac. Like Nana, Haofeng and Xiao, we can forge unlikely kinships beyond the engineered confines of the roads we’re told to take. Our three protagonists make a new map for themselves as they respond to factors outside of their control—snowstorms, lost wallets, broken ankles—that throw them off course. Even if they buckle under the duress of these stressors, they do put a crack in the proverbial ice ceiling as they push past unrealistic societal expectations.
The trio’s vulnerability and adaptability recall the essence of the extended road metaphor: while we may not control every aspect of our journey, we have the autonomy to respond, adapt, and redefine our paths.
The road, with its apparent structure and direction, doesn’t necessarily dictate our journeys. It’s in the detours and unexpected turns that new relational maps are drawn. These maps aren’t just about reaching a destination but about the richness of the journey itself—the kinships formed, the challenges overcome, and the personal growth that occurs. The structuring network of the road doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to get lost along the way.
In a world that often tries to propel us down specific paths, “The Breaking Ice” hits the brakes. It asks: What happens when we choose to “lie flat” and step away from the relentless pursuit of predetermined goals? If we’re funnelled down a path we don’t want to take, what desire paths might we forge in its wake?
Sim Jiaying runs the Singapore Film Database, a resource dedicated to Singapore cinema. She holds a PhD in Film & Television Studies from the University of Glasgow. She has written on Asian cinemas, screen ethics, cultural narratives, and the intersection of media theory and practice. Visit here for more of her writing.
“The Breaking Ice” will be streaming on Netflix Singapore from February 9th.
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