影片2012年获温哥华国际电影节龙虎奖，2013年入选鹿特丹国际电影节“光明未来”单元和纽约“新作品／新导演”影展，2013年获得第十届中国独立影像展剧情片竞赛单元最高奖。
There are surprises every year in China’s embattled indie sector, but few as unexpected as this one. Li Luo has take n three chapters o f the Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West (aka Monkey) and adapted the story of the short-term death of Emperor Li Shimin to the modern China of officials, bureaucrats and gangsters. The Dragon King perverts the course of nature and is punished with execution; the emperor tried to step in to prevent it happening, but he didn’t allow for the power of dreams. Now Li is lying on his deathbed, beset by stray ghosts. Can he be saved? The storytelling explores several layers of "reality," but coalesces into an image of China’s perennial absurdity: a new-old world where peace always breeds wealth. Brilliant, straight-faced political satire. The "ungrammatical" title, by the way, references a Chinese movie of 1927.

As with everything in life, the same goes for East Lake, a threatened lake near the expanding mega city of Wuhan. You can get worked up about it and get involved - or you can think, it won’t affect me. Fortunately there’s the intriguing new film by Li Luo, which brings to an end these doubts. East Lake (Dong Hu) is a scenic area in the city of Wuhan, threatened by new amusement parks, high-rises and even an airport. ‘East Lake is getting smaller and smaller, but it's bigger and bigger in my memory,’ wrote a friend to the Canada-based Chinese filmmaker Li Luo as a result of the development. In a lucid way, the film investigates how the lake is linked to the people, leading to reflection on identity and survival in today’s China. The form is varied and free. Li uses documentary as well as fictional style elements, and often an ironic mixture of both. © iffr.com