Nina Wu นีน่า อู๋ (2019) [บรรยายไทย]

Taipei actress Nina Wu — played by screenwriter Wu Ke-Xi in a steel-jawed dagger of a performance — hasn’t landed a movie role in the six years since she’s trickled down to the big city from the rural farm town where she was raised. In lieu of acting gigs, she pays the bills by working as a cam girl from her drab apartment, but most of the time she’s just another face in the bustling crowds.

Then: A chance to stand out. Nina’s agent dangles an audition for a risqué part in an erotic spy thriller from a hot young director, and while the thirtysomething actress is hesitant about exposing herself on screen (and to the vulnerability that shooting those scenes would require from her), her shit-eating agent makes it clear that this is less of a choice than a crucible. “I doubt any real professional would turn down a role because of nudity,” he says with the arrogance of someone who’s strong-armed so many women that he’s lost sight of how transparent he sounds.

The worst part is that Nina hears it too. Once upon a time she may have been naive, but now she has to fool herself into thinking she doesn’t know what comes next. It isn’t long before “Nina Wu” convinces us that we don’t either, as Myanmar-born director Midi Z — weaponizing the hazy language of a psychological thriller to confront hard truths in this bold and challenging departure from more naturalistic migrant dramas like “The Road to Mandalay” — pulls his muse towards uncertain territory.

Nina’s audition doesn’t appear to go well, as the sociopathic director of the film-within-a-film (Shih Ming-shuai) coldly draws a big “X” through the actress’ headshot in the middle of her reading. But the next thing we know, Nina is stumbling through an elaborate shot and giving the performance of her life even if it kills her. And there are any number of ways that it might. Nina’s abusive director treats her like a glorified prop, and nobody on the crew so much as bats an eye after a runaway car speeds across set and nearly flattens the movie’s star.

When a boat scene goes explosively wrong and leaves Nina sinking towards the bottom of the sea (her open eyes and sheet-white skin evoking the rueful ghosts of Japanese horror films), Midi Z appears to be on the verge of a full-blown #MeToo revenge saga inspired by the anger that Wu Ke-Xi’s carries from her own mistreatment in the Taiwanese film industry.