Dark Matter

Release Date: April 11, 2008 (limited)
Studio: First Independent Pictures
Director: Chen Shi-Zheng
Screenwriter: Billy Shebar
Starring: Liu Ye, Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: Not Available
Official Website: DarkMatterthefilm.com | MySpace.com/DarkMattermovie
Review: Not Available
DVD Review: Not Available
DVD: DVD
Movie Poster: View here
Production Stills: View here

Plot Summary: The feature film debut of renowned opera and theater director Chen Shi-Zheng, "Dark Matter" delves into the world of Liu Xing (Chinese for "Shooting Star"), a Chinese science student pursuing a Ph.D. in the United States in the early 1990s. Driven by ambition, yet unable to navigate academic politics, Liu Xing is inexorably pushed to the margins of American life, until he loses his way.

Liu Xing (Liu Ye) arrives at a big Western university with plans to study the origins of the universe. At first, his experience is a heady rush of expectation and optimism. He finds other Chinese students to share a cheap apartment with him, and flirts with an attractive American girl who works in a local tea shop. When the head of the department, Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn), welcomes Liu Xing into his select cosmology group, it seems that only hard work stands between him and a bright future in American science. At an orientation for foreigners sponsored by a local church, Joanna Silver (Meryl Streep), a wealthy patron of the university, notices the earnest student. An unspoken bond forms between them.

Liu Xing becomes Reiser's protégé, accompanying him to a prestigious conference where he makes an impressive debut. He is drawn to the study of dark matter, an unseen substance that shapes the universe, but it soon becomes clear that his developing theories threaten Reiser's conflicting theories and well-established studies. Excited by the possibility of a breakthrough, Liu Xing is deaf to warnings that he must first pay his dues. When he is eclipsed within the department by Laurence, a more dutiful Chinese student, Liu Xing is forced to go behind Reiser's back to publish his discoveries. When the article draws ire instead of accolades, he turns to Joanna, who naively encourages him on his collision course.

Liu Xing clings to the idea of American science as a free market of ideas, and American society as wide open to immigrants. But in the end, his dissertation is rejected, and the girl in the tea shop brushes him off. His roommates find jobs, leaving him behind. Too proud to accept help from Joanna, and unwilling to return home to his parents, Liu Xing becomes a ghost-like presence at the university. Left alone with his shattered dreams, he explodes in a final act of violence.

Exclusive Trailer (2.28.08):
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Exclusive Clip (3.26.08):
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COMMENTS (5)

Posted by:

Captain Obvious

March 26, 2008

Is it just me, or does this synopsis outline the entire arc of the film? It doesn't really leave a lot to discover from watching the film does it?

Posted by:

verynicehowmuch

March 26, 2008

I feel liked i already seen this film

Posted by:

mac

March 26, 2008

they do give the whole plot away dont they

Posted by:

mushu

March 28, 2008

I'ved heard this plot before - asian kid goes crazy and kills a bunch of poeple in school....where was that?

Posted by:

Mitzi

August 25, 2009

I thought it was an excellent film!
I love Meryl Streep!

• 1

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