MUMU (不说话的爱) (2025)

Genre: Drama
Director: Sha Mo
Cast: Lay Zhang, Li Luoan, Huang Yao, An Tian, Ai Liya, Zhang Ruonan
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Rating: PG (Some Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: Golden Village 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 10 April 2025

Synopsis: The birth of their daughter Mumu gives new hope to the young deaf couple - Xiaoma and Xiaojing. Their common wish is for Mumu to grow up healthily and happily like an able-bodied person. But even when Mumu is about to enter elementary school, she does not utter a word. Mumu’s reason for not speaking is something no one could have imagined…

Movie Review:

The English movie title Mumu has no meaning or context for the uninitiated. In actual fact, it’s the name of a precocious seven-year-old girl whose dad, Xiao Ma (Lay Zhang) is a hearing-impaired individual. Mumu and her dad who lives on odd jobs leads a simple life and stays in a room housed within a mahjong parlour. Life might be tough but Mumu has the love from his dad and his bunch of hearing-impaired friends.

One day, Mumu’s biological mother returns from her “overseas working trip” and tries to fight with Xiao Ma over the custody of Mumu. In order to raise money for the court case, Xiao Ma is misled into committing a felony. Promising him thousands of dollars and an asset to prove he is able to provide for Mumu, Xiao Ma risked his life nightly in an insurance scam which involves faking dangerous car accidents.

After his stunning performance in No More Bets, we got to say ex-EXO member Lay Zhang has certainly grows as an actor. And Mumu has proven he is more than a pretty face as Xiao Ma, a character that is unable to express himself through words. Zhang completely immersed himself in the role, delivering a spectacular performance that not only uplift the narrative but pays a powerful tribute to the real-life disabled individuals who struggles to blend into our daily world.

Newcomer child actress Li Luoan is another gem. Not only she is as cute as a button, she emotes and cries on cue without being too manipulatively. She is a natural in other words. Watch for the scene between her and Xiao Ma in a playground in which she attempts to play the recorder to her deaf dad. In this particular scene where Mumu tries to explain to her dad about the sound of a whale prior, the simple interaction between father and daughter speaks volumes about their relationship. If you are not tearing by the end of it, I’m not sure if you are in the right mood for a good weepie.

All things considered, Mumu might be subjected to a few criticisms especially the final act which contains soggy schmaltz and lots of balling out. Even contrived perhaps. A grown-up Mumu (Zhang Ruo Nan) who now works as sort of an interpreter also appears as and when detailing the vulnerabilities of the deaf in a probably a shove-in-your-face kind of social lesson.

Needless to say, Mumu is a predictable drama in terms of plotting. It’s more or less moulded in the same vein as I Am Sam, the 2002 movie that stars Sean Penn as an intellectual disability dad and Dakota Fanning as his precocious daughter. Lots of drama, lots of tears and lots of good acting. Mumu tells audiences right from the start, it is a fictional story. Yet Zhang and Li are so convincing that we want to believe that there is a pair of hearing impaired father and his daughter out there who has a happy ending like them after all.

Movie Rating:

(A tearjerker with outstanding performances, Mumu is predictable yet touching and emotional)

Review by Linus Tee