Dead Pigs

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 33 reviews, and an average rating of 7.7/10. Its site consensus reads, "Dead Pigs casts a sharp critical and satirical eye toward late-stage capitalism in China and the world beyond, establishing writer-director Cathy Yan as a filmmaker to watch."^[12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 based on nine reviews.^[13]

Justin Lowe of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as "a dark, quirky comedy that peels back the layers of contemporary Mainland mores and reveals a group of people almost completely deracinated by their quest to get ahead in a society buffeted by rapidly shifting cultural expectations."^[14] Jessica Kiang of Variety wrote, "Yan's film, with its dancing girls, pigeon-fancying beauticians, Westerners-on-the-make and spontaneous musical numbers, is an antidote to China's weightier arthouse output, settling the stomach after too much stolid social realism, effervescent as an alka-seltzer."^[15] Elizabeth Horkley of Mubi praised the verisimilitude of Yan's cast of characters, writing: "Dead Pigs, in its favoring of ordinary, human interactions over narrative pomp, leads to unexpected places that shouldn't be unexpected at all. Her characters behave like multifaceted humans, and the pleasure in watching Yan’s debut feature is akin to the feeling of meeting someone new who you think you're going to like."^[16]

• Dead Pigs at IMDb