Trap Street

The events unfold in modern times, dominated by digital cartography and pervasive surveillance. The world is one where CCTV networks, data trails, and mapping platforms shape how people move and how secrets are found or hidden.

Set in a contemporary city in Southern China, the story centers on a mapped urban landscape where a street can vanish from a digital atlas. Forest Lane appears as an unlabeled street Li discovers and follows, leading to Lab 23, a mysterious building that features in the mystery. The area juxtaposes ordinary city life with covert research and a web of CCTV infrastructure that blurs the line between public data and private secrets.

🔍 Surveillance

The film centers on surveillance—Li’s job mapping CCTV coverage, access to video feeds, and how data trails reveal or conceal connections. It shows how maps and monitoring systems can both illuminate and obscure truth, depending on who controls the data.

💘 Obsession

Li’s fixation on Guan Lifen drives his actions, pushing him to chase clues across the city. The pursuit blurs boundaries between professional duty and personal longing, leading to risky decisions and emotional cost.

🧭 Reality vs Map

The disappearance of a street from Li’s map and the inaccessibility of CCTV video highlight the fragility of digital representations. The film explores how a precise cartographic view can diverge from real spaces, exposing gaps between database records and actual places.