Before Christmas (2016)
Director: Chuyao He
Starring: Jianchun Hao, Deyang Hou, Chengliang Li, Xianyuan Zhu.
Plot: A poor Chinese family moves to the city to find work. The father and his son Xiao Lee, an 18-year-old who dreams of being a singer, take hard labour jobs in a Christmas decoration factory. Xiao Lee resists accepting a harsh reality and considers pursuing his dream. Tragedy unfolds for the family as they struggle within a rigid social environment.
This short film runs for fourteen minutes and fifty-six seconds, a compact runtime that nonetheless felt much longer to me. In that time the film attempts to portray urban displacement, exploitative factory labour and the fragile hopes of a young man, but its execution leaves mixed impressions. Certain moments are quietly effective, while technical and storytelling choices often undermine the film’s impact.
The most persistent problem is the film’s sound design. From the opening frames an intrusive, steady background noise threads through nearly every scene. Initially this can be read as an intentional choice: Xiao Lee has just arrived in a noisy city and the soundscape is overwhelming. But the same harsh sound continues through scenes set beside a river and in quiet interiors, where it feels misplaced. Layered with amplified ambient effects — footsteps, scraping chairs, distant machinery, rain and other small noises — the result is frequently distracting rather than immersive. The heightened, often indistinct audio leaves the viewer straining to focus on visual cues and character expression, which weakens the film’s emotional clarity.
Cinematography and camera handling also contributed to my frustration. Several scenes are shot from odd or inconsistent angles with no clear purpose: shots through doorways, an over-the-shoulder composition that reads like a camera placed above the interviewer’s head, or a view from the top of a staircase. At times the camera feels shaky and unintentionally unstable, even cropping the top of a character’s head in one moment. These choices create a sense of awkwardness rather than deliberate style. Rather than enhancing the story, they become small but repeated distractions.
Storytelling problems compound the technical issues. The script raises questions it never answers: why is Xiao Lee forbidden to use the house phone? Why has someone working in a Christmas decoration factory never heard of Christmas? Most notably, despite repeated displays of poor performance — distraction on the line, slow compliance with instructions and visible boredom — Xiao Lee appears to retain his job without consequence. The film clearly aims to show oppressive working conditions, and it succeeds in moments, but it fails to bridge gaps in motivation and cause-and-effect that would make character choices feel credible.
One of the film’s strongest sequences is its simple depiction of the factory’s mounting workload. Early in a shift we see Xianyuan Zhu’s character sitting and working on stockings. As orders increase, the piles of red felt grow until only his head and shoulders remain visible. By the final shots, the screen is dominated by mounds of stockings while the worker is heard rather than seen. These visual beats communicate the grind of repetitive labour and the way workers can be buried by demand — a clear and effective metaphor that stands out amid the film’s unevenness.
Unfortunately, those effective moments do not fully redeem the short. Xiao Lee’s arc is murky: the film gestures at his dream of becoming a singer, but never demonstrates any meaningful action toward that goal. He sulks through most of the runtime without expressing his ambition in a way that would justify a turning point or any consequential decision. The result is an ending that lacks resolution and leaves the viewer without a satisfying emotional payoff.
In summary, Before Christmas contains elements of thoughtful social observation and a few strong visual choices, but persistent issues with sound, camera work and narrative clarity limit its effectiveness. The film’s depiction of factory life is memorable, yet the overall experience feels incomplete.
Score: 4/24
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You can find out more about the film under the following titles (search these resources by name):
IMDB – Before Christmas (2016)
Facebook – Before Christmas (film page)
Trailer (Vimeo) – Before Christmas Trailer