Director Cathy Yan has gone for the multi-characters intersecting story - and like others have mentioned, some of the stories and characters are more interesting than others. The movie doesn't seem too focused and meanders for a chunk of the runtime. It's not a total bore. I liked the younger generational romance story, but its not enough to save the overall movie from a mixed reaction. The indebted father and his sister was fairly grating to watch even with bad luck and all. Give it a kind 6/10.

Dead Pigs is quirky and vibrant where the characters collide through their personal turmoils and as their city undergoes big changes. Crazy salon bird lady steals the show defending her house from developers.

A pig farmer, a beauty salon owner, a young waiter, a wealthy girl and an architect share adventures when thousands of dead pigs appear in Shanghai's central river. Based on true events (in 2013, 16,000 pigs were found in the Huangpu River, infected with PCV),this film marks the debut of Cathy Yan as a director, who 2 years later (2020),makes herself known to the western world with Birds of Prey. The characters are excellent examples of the personification of various problems in modern societies, such as the lack of empathy, ambition, fear of facing reality or the social economic gap between classes. There's a clear western view on the narrative, so that the public can identify itself with the story, but it is still a very interesting set of ideas, and a kind of wake-up call for the Chinese boom at a global level.