06-16-2025, 11:20 PM
Jia Zhangke is one of China’s leading directors, a darling of Cannes, and I’ve been meaning to check out his work for years. This one stars Wang Baoqiang, one of my fav actors who trained at Shaolin as a kid and has delivered great action & comedy. This is neither. This is a gut punch, four gut punches, that will haunt me.
It’s four very loosely connect vignettes all based on true stories. Each is brutal, oppressive and packed with existential dread. Harsh. Sanguineous. Unforgiving. Warning - there’s some hard animal violence - a horse getting beaten (which was right when Stacy peeked in of course) and a duck getting bled out. Not for the squeamish. Plus there’s some hyper-realistic shotgun blasts - one to the face that is disturbingly convincing. And that’s just the first vignette.
But where Jia is brilliant is his sense of atmosphere. He catches modern China so well - its hardships, squalor, drabness, clutter, and also its beauty, monstrous architecture, impacted landscapes… I could feel his locations. I could almost smell them. His style is magnificent, filled with detailed compositions that diminish the human condition in the face of such urban chaos. He sees the surreal aspect of real China with dazzling clarity, setting up scenes that are so gritty yet so ethereal.
And he moves his story arcs with such poetry. I longed for the rhythm and rhyme of it, eager to see how it all fit together. Ultimately the ties that bind the four threads are threadbare, and yet somehow, it still works. Impressively resonate for me having been to China so many times. The film captures what bewitches and horrifies me about China, what I love and hate about it. And it does so without judgement. It’s just keen observations by Jia, both in tone and vibe.
I will explore more. Criterion has a collection. But his work is not to be taken lightly. I must be in the right mindset for the next one. I read where this film is one of his bloodiest. He sets up the violence so it’s shocking when it happens, as it should be. One shotgun scene actually made me jump even though I knew what was going to happen.
Only D00M recommended for film buffs and sinophiles. Let me watch a few more and cherry pick something that’s a little less harsh to recommend.
It’s four very loosely connect vignettes all based on true stories. Each is brutal, oppressive and packed with existential dread. Harsh. Sanguineous. Unforgiving. Warning - there’s some hard animal violence - a horse getting beaten (which was right when Stacy peeked in of course) and a duck getting bled out. Not for the squeamish. Plus there’s some hyper-realistic shotgun blasts - one to the face that is disturbingly convincing. And that’s just the first vignette.
But where Jia is brilliant is his sense of atmosphere. He catches modern China so well - its hardships, squalor, drabness, clutter, and also its beauty, monstrous architecture, impacted landscapes… I could feel his locations. I could almost smell them. His style is magnificent, filled with detailed compositions that diminish the human condition in the face of such urban chaos. He sees the surreal aspect of real China with dazzling clarity, setting up scenes that are so gritty yet so ethereal.
And he moves his story arcs with such poetry. I longed for the rhythm and rhyme of it, eager to see how it all fit together. Ultimately the ties that bind the four threads are threadbare, and yet somehow, it still works. Impressively resonate for me having been to China so many times. The film captures what bewitches and horrifies me about China, what I love and hate about it. And it does so without judgement. It’s just keen observations by Jia, both in tone and vibe.
I will explore more. Criterion has a collection. But his work is not to be taken lightly. I must be in the right mindset for the next one. I read where this film is one of his bloodiest. He sets up the violence so it’s shocking when it happens, as it should be. One shotgun scene actually made me jump even though I knew what was going to happen.
Only D00M recommended for film buffs and sinophiles. Let me watch a few more and cherry pick something that’s a little less harsh to recommend.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse