A girl moves around a Chinese restaurant, talking to her working mother in Under the Wave off Little Dragon, a short film from Luo Jian, which is featured at the 69th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF).
The Mandarin-, English- and Welsh-language movie is 14 minutes long and part of an LFF collection of shorts screening under the title “Discovering Home.”
“A Chinese girl growing up in a Welsh fishing village rejects her mother’s folklore, until she experiences one magical encounter,” reads a synopsis for the film starring Kexin Wang as the young and curious FeiFei. It also features Ah Mui Lau, Jessica Dong, Stevee Davies, Rhys Meredith, Ross Foley, and Lee Mengo.
Under the Wave off Little Dragon is one of four Film4 shorts at the LFF and was supported and funded by Future Takes, a joint initiative from the BFI and Channel 4’s Film4, whose creative and production executives support each film through its entire lifecycle. Once completed, the films are screened at a showcase, after which they become available for streaming on Channel 4 platforms and the BFI Player.
Jian talked to THR about bringing some of her experiences to the screen, the young standout in the lead role, and what may be next for her.
How did you come up with the idea for this film, and how much did your personal experiences drive it?
Three years ago, when I first moved from the U.S. to the U.K., I was feeling quite lonely. I also moved at a horrible time for the U.K., in January, when it’s really dark. I was not used to that. I moved to London from New York, but I went to Wales on a family trip with my partner, who is half Welsh. And when I was in Wales, I felt much better. It kind of reminded me of my hometown – lots of sheep, lots of grass. I grew up in the greener part of the Gobi Desert in China. So it’s very, very green, even though it’s bordering the desert. Maybe I was missing home too much. But I saw hints of China everywhere in Wales.
What else did you notice beyond the green landscapes?
I saw little statues, Welsh red dragon statues, on people’s walls. And I was having this joking argument with my boyfriend, telling him that this was the Chinese dragon. And he was like: “Oh, no, it’s the Welsh dragon.” We’ve had that longer.
How did you find your charismatic young star?
When we met her, I think she was seven. She’s really young. We found her through casting. We had this amazing casting director, and she managed to find lots of kids without any experience. The girl we ended up casting as FeiFei has no experience and came with her mother. Most of the kids did, and from the beginning of the casting process, we were paying attention to how they interacted with their family. Because I always want to use real people. In the back of my head, I’m thinking: “I don’t know how the rules work in the U.K., but if it’s in China, I would always cast a person and ask them to bring people they know into the film so there’s a more natural interaction.”
When she came in, she was so serious about herself. I don’t see that in other kids. Later on, after getting to know her more, I realized that’s just her way to overcome being nervous. She pretends she’s uptight. But there’s something really charming about that way of carrying yourself so seriously as a kid, and her mom, who helped to improvise some scenes with her, is also fantastic.
They actually also run a restaurant near Heathrow. When we cast them, we didn’t know. For some reason, the mom didn’t want to tell us. But after we cast them, the mom was like: “Actually, we run this restaurant.”
So, was the casting quick?
We didn’t meet her until the last day of casting.
Luo Jian
While watching the movie, I thought about how we find our role, and a certain level of comfort, in the world. Did you start work on the film knowing exactly what themes you wanted to explore?
Actually, the casting gave me a lot of ideas. Before that, the script was written more closely to my experience. It was about a kid who’s just come to the U.K., who is sensing the loneliness because she has just arrived.
But after casting someone who was born here as FeiFei – she speaks Chinese at home, but her first language is English, so she’s very well integrated – I started changing the script based on her and her mom. That’s usually how I work. I find it more fun for myself to get to know this person. Through improvisation, we mapped out a different theme. So, it became about a second-generation [kid] rather than a first-generation immigrant.
But FeiFei’s mother is a first-generation immigrant, which sets up a key dynamic in the film…
Yes, you hear stories from your mom’s hometown because she is a first-generation immigrant. Someone you trust is telling you stories that you’ve never experienced. So, I became more interested in what FeiFei’s relationship is with this culture that’s not her firsthand culture.
The film features the fish and the dragon. Is there symbolism in those in Chinese culture, similar to how in Western cultures, fish sometimes have religious connotations?
I don’t know enough about Chinese religion, but there are stories about fish in Buddhist scriptures. It’s one of those things that has many symbolic meanings wrapped around it. You just see it everywhere in Chinese lives. And you hear stories constantly about how fish equals dragon, because if you’re a fish that swims fast enough and jumps high enough, you can become a dragon. Dragon is basically fish 2.0, and it’s one of these cautionary tales that teach you to strive for a better life.
But you don’t need such stories…
I don’t believe in tales like this. I don’t gain strength from them. That’s why, in the story, you see the mom telling this fish and dragon story to FeiFei, but she doesn’t believe it either. Maybe she’s curious about it, though.
Do you have any idea or plan for what you will be doing next?
I have a couple of feature Ideas brewing, but it always takes me a long time to go from one to the next. I’m not a fast writer.
For more LFF 2025 shorts coverage, check out:
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and
Sheep and Mob Mentality: ‘Flock’ Writer-Director Mac Nixon Wants to Reframe Welsh Identity on Screen
and
‘Magid / Zafar’ Writer-Director Luís Hindman Sets the Beat to Explore South Asian Masculinity