Dark Matter

Name: Dark Matter
Genre: Drama
Released: April 11, 2008
Duration: 88 min
Rating: 49

2008

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Ratings

See All

5.6

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5.6	Your Score
5.6	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Play Sound

Please enter your birth date to watch this video:

You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

Dark Matter

Now Playing: Dark Matter

Movie Details & Credits

First Independent Pictures | Release Date: April 11, 2008 | R

Summary: Liu Xing is a Chinese science student pursuing a PhD in the US 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 arrives at a big Western university with plans to study the origins of the universe. In the beginning,Liu Xing is a Chinese science student pursuing a PhD in the US 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 arrives at a big Western university with plans to study the origins of the universe. In the beginning, everything is looking up. 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, 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, a wealthy patron of the university, notices the earnest student, and an unspoken bond forms between them. Liu Xing becomes Reiser's protege, 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 the Reiser model. Excited by the possibility of a breakthrough, Liu Xing is deaf to warnings that he must first pay his dues. Soon he is eclipsed within the department by Laurence, a more dutiful Chinese student, and is forced to go behind Reiser's back to publish his discoveries. When his article draws ire instead of accolades, Liu Xing 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 of 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 ghostlike presence at the university. Left alone with his shattered dreams, he explodes in a final act of violence. (First Independent Pictures)… Expand

Director: Shi-Zheng Chen

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 88 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

TV Guide Magazine Ken Fox

Hypnotic, culturally pertinent drama. Read full review

J.R. Jones

First-time director Chen Shi-Zheng shows great sensitivity to the pressure and isolation felt by Chinese brains at American universities, and the relationship between Liu and Quinn provides a rare look at the intellectual serfdom of graduate study. Read full review

Zack Haddad

This is a great film, to a point. Unfortunately the ending doesn't deliver, making the entire feature an exercise is wasted potential. But maybe that's the point. Read full review

Lou Lumenick

An unsatisfying drama that premiered at Sundance '07 and was supposedly delayed because of the Virginia Tech shootings. Read full review

Gregory Kirschling

Liu Ye is too inexpressive for his role's demands, and the movie doesn't build to his downfall: It just zaps itself there. Read full review

Josh Rosenblatt

It’s hard to ask for juicier, or more timely, subject matter than high-pressure academic ambition turning violent, but to map the descent of a genius into madness isn’t a task to be taken lightly. Read full review

Reyhan Harmanci

If only it weren't based on a true story. It might have been a good movie. Read full review

SEE ALL 16 REVIEWS

Write a Review

User Reviews

2141

Sep 26, 2015

What the hell was that ending ? I don't get why you would end the movie that way? When this was a real situation? Then again that proffesor was a bastards but did he deserve that ending? No

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Mauro_Lanari

Jan 8, 2020

(Mauro Lanari)
Inspired by the true story of Gang Lu and by the 1991 University of Iowa shooting, it's so interchangeable with the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting that production had to push back the release over a year. Sociological and cultural psychopathology of US late adolescence, it has(Mauro Lanari)
Inspired by the true story of Gang Lu and by the 1991 University of Iowa shooting, it's so interchangeable with the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting that production had to push back the release over a year. Sociological and cultural psychopathology of US late adolescence, it has not much to say about the narcissistic clash between professor and student, about interethnic conflict and even less about cosmology: dark matter is a simple metaphor of the negative side of human nature, recycled a decade later by Ayache-Vidal in "Les Grands Esprits". Debut of an opera director, it drags the theatrical ballast of "Monkey King" and "Madama Butterfly" (both explicitly shown in the film), adding cinematic incompetence to a melodramatic cut. Streep in "Desperate Housewife" version with a knack for sinology.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SEE ALL 2 REVIEWS