Hu Ge (third from left), Diao Yinan (center), Kwai Lun-mei (third from right) at the 'Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui /The Wild Goose Lake' premiere during the 72nd Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals on Sunday in Cannes, France. Photo: IC

Chinese crime film The Wild Goose Lake, based on a true story, gives a glimpse of Chinese gangdom, police chases and sex workers, and has been widely praised by moviegoers who placed high hopes on taking the Golden Palm Award at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

Directed by Diao Yinan, who won the Golden Bear award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival for Black Coal, Thin Ice, the movie, starring Hu Ge, Kwai Lun-mei, Liao Fan and Wan Qian, follows the story about a thief's self-redemption on the getaway, according to mtime.com. 

Zhou Zenong, played by Hu Ge, kills a policeman by accident and was chased both by the police and by his fellow gang members. A sex worker, portrayed by Kwai Lun-mei, works as a "bathing beauty" by swimming with her clients and conducting her business with them in the water.

The 113-minute film has entered in the main competition of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, and made its premiere at Cannes on Saturday.

Some moviegoers, who had seen the film, told media that they were touched by the gun fighting scenes, character settings as well as the themes. 

At the end of the screening, the audience, including renowned director Quentin Tarantino, gave a four-minute long applause to pay tribute to the production team, an indication that the film resonates with them.

Moreover, the film received more than 220 million hits on Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, with quite a few netizens giving high hopes on the film to take the top prize at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, and calling for it to be shown in theaters as soon as possible.

"It's one of the best films I've seen this year. The film has incorporated the strong personal style of the director, and created an atmosphere of bleakness and uncertainty," one netizen said on Sina Weibo. "Though each character in the film strives to live better, life is not always good. However, the director has made me feel warm by highlighting the shining part of humanity."

"It's good to see more and more Chinese films winning prizes from international film festivals, which proves that China's film industry has not only achieved huge success at the box office but at awards in recent years," Tao Wenfang, a Guangzhou-based film and TV critic, told the Global Times on Monday.

But awards from international film festivals are not the sole standard to measure the quality of a film, and Chinese people should "keep a common mind and be confident about our own films," Tao noted, adding that Chinese blockbusters like Wolf Warriors 2 and The Wandering Earth have not won top prizes on the international stage, but they still represent a milestone in the Chinese film industry.