Winter Vacation is that one film that can be truly titled as a slow comedy about boredom during a winter break. The director of the flick Li Hogqi’s has worked on making the film an uneventful symbol of what kids go through when they are on a winter vacation back home in a snow covered urban barren area in northern China with nothing good to do.

The labored comedy offers only few moments of chortle but these laughs will not still compensate for the decision made by the Locarno International Film Festival jury who marked the film with the best film award in Switzerland. This recognition will get the movie aired at other prominent festivals but the viewers will experience the slow pace of the comedy that is coupled with static camera takes during many shots with silent picturising that has characters uttering virtually no dialogues at all.

The movie to add on to this effect has a gag by including a grumpy grandfather who also imposes further silence and lifelessness in the little kid who resentfully follows his ways along with a stint of humor where the same child is interrogated by a little girl about what he wants to become in his future responds with a very silly response to which the girl says,” You are a pitiful child.”

Cast: Ba Junjie, Zhang Naqi, Bai Jinfeng, Xie Ying, Wang Hui, Bao Lei, Director/screenwriter/editor: Li Hongqi, Music: Zuoxiao Zuzhou, The Top Floor Circus, 91 minutes