"The world is a wasteland."
"He told me the other day. There is an elephant in Manzhouli. It sits there all day long. Perhaps some people keep stabbing it with forks. Or maybe it just enjoys sitting there. I don't know. People gather there, watching it sitting still. They feed the elephant food. But it takes no notice."
— Yu Cheng
An Elephant Sitting Still is a 2018 drama film written and directed by Hu Bo.
The film follow four protagonists and their respective stories. Wei Bu (Peng Yuchang) is a schoolboy on the run after pushing a school's bully down the stairs. Wei's classmate, Huang Ling (Wang Yuwen), falls for the charms of her teacher. Yu Cheng (Zhang Yu), the bully's small-time gangster brother, struggling with guilt after his friend commit suicide. And Wang Jin (Liu Congxi), whose married son tries to offload him to a nursing home. Towards the end, the four plots eventually converge into a single plot.
The film contains examples of:
- Alas, Poor Villain: Yu Cheng. Within a single day, he lost everything and everyone. His best and only friend committed suicide right in front of him, his younger brother died after falling down the stairs, his parents disowned him, and his ex-girlfriend left him.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The entire film took place in a single day, beginning in the morning and end in the night.
