A Geek in China

A warm and poignant narrative about finding one's self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter's attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach.

When the police in small-town Yangshan bust a gangster ring in a hotel, they notice one man trying to escape. Gao Fei (Yin Xiaotian) is quickly apprehended and brought to the station. But what the cops have unknowingly uncovered is an entirely different sort of crime. Gao Fei is on the run – from China’s Internet users.
The initial interrogation uncovers the bare bones of the story – a few flirtatious emails between married computer geek Gao Fei and lonely housewife Lin Yan (Tang Yan) were blown out of proportion by her angry husband Cheng Tao (Li Yixiang), who went online in search of a mob to destroy Gao Fei’s name. Soon online harassment turned into physical threats and stalking, most notably by online journalist Xu Wei (Xie Yanxiao, in a solid performance as a self-righteous busybody) and his video-filming web techie sidekick Zhou Qiang (Cao Wei), who fly from Beijing to track down the woebegone Gao Fei.
The police set Gao Fei free, only to haul him back in when Lin Yan’s headless corpse washes up onshore. The subsequent interrogation is spliced with flashbacks that flesh out the true story. Soon the police are questioning everyone involved in the case, and each adds another layer to a deliciously tangled mystery.