One smashed phone, one teenage secret, one summer that swallows her whole.
Eighteen-year-old girl Li Qi failed the college entrance examinations. She disobeyed her mother, refusing to return to school to be a returning student. The relationship between Li Qi and her mother worsened. At classmate Xiaowei’s birthday party, Li Qi and Xiaowei had a quarrel. Li Qi smashed Xiaowei’s newly-bought iPhone in a rage. Unexpectedly, her originally peaceful summer life was changed after the quarrel. Facing the crisis of claiming compensation by her classmate, Li Qi chose to hide it from her mother, determined to keep it as her secret and solve the problem alone. And this secret was like a fishbone stuck in her throat, gradually becoming an unspeakable discomfort for her. The bitterness and pains of growing-up come one after another. She began to rethink her relationship with her mother, and her relationship with the world.
Acting
Jingyi Huang's face does what the script won't say.
Direction
Zhang lets silence choke you better than any dialogue could.
Cinematography
Sticky, suffocating summer light that refuses to offer relief.
Director
Xuyu Zhang
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'gaokao' failure frames everything—it's not just a test, it's a family's shredded investment in one child's future.
The title's fishbone metaphor isn't subtle, but it lands: Li Qi's secret is literally something she can't swallow or spit out, just like an entire generation's unspoken class anxieties.
CN
