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盲山 (2007)
Blind Mountain


Reviewed by: Gaijin84
Date: 01/24/2017
Summary: Blood boiling drama...

Amazingly infuriating movie that feels more like a psychological horror film than a drama. Imagine being drugged and left in the middle of nowhere, with no money or ID and everyone around you is determined to keep you there. Absolutely nothing gets done unless a bribe is used, no matter how humane the request may be. Unfortunately for the protagonist, women have absolutely no use in the village other than to impregnate with hopefully a male child, or do menial farm work. If they try to escape across the rugged and mountainous terrain and are caught, they are beaten and raped. Even when help seems to arrive from outside, the locals overwhelm them and they are forced to leave. It's an incredibly frustrating film to watch, but very effective and depressing. The worst part is this happened a great deal in rural China in the aftermath of the single child policy.
The Story of Qui Ju is mentioned in reference to the culture of these dated farming villages in China, where morals are replaced with bribes and standards of decency are turned on their heads. To me it felt a great deal like the more recent "12 Years a Slave," where someone is ripped out of their normal life and placed in a hellish situation that is nearly impossible to get themselves out of, to no fault of their own.

It should be noted, there is an uncut version (Kino) at 103 minutes that has a different and less uplifting ending than the 98 minute cut (Deltamac) that was censored for Chinese release. Highly recommended with the caveat that it will grate your nerves and stick in your head for weeks.

9/10

Reviewer Score: 9

Reviewed by: dandan
Date: 03/24/2008
Summary: an ordeal...

northern china, the early nineties. bai (huang lu) is looking to make some money; she's just finished college, her family has debts and they're struggling to pay her younger brother's college fees. when she lands a job with a company who by and sell herbs, she finds herself travelling to a remote village, with the company's manager and his assistant.

whilst they go to inspect the produce, she stays with the farmer's family. the next morning, she wakes, finding that she has not been working for a legitimate company: she has been sold as a wife. naturally, she tries to explain what has happened but, with question marks over her integrity, accusations that she is trying to rip off the family and the fact that they have paid rmb7000 for her, she is trapped. trapped, alone and doomed to spend her life as wife to a husband she doesn't know, in a village far from her old life: isolated, abused, alone. escape seems impossible...

this is the second film from li yang, who also wrote and directed the excellent 'blind shaft': an expose of corruption within mine workers in china. with 'blind mountain', li tackles the, once, common practice of women being sold as wives, who are little more than vessels to bear the children of the men whose family's have purchased them.

the care-free tone, of the first five minutes of the film, swiftly disappears, turning into the story of bai's ordeal and her attempts to contact her family and escape from the village. the distinct rejection of melodrama, in li's style, and a great central performance from huang lu make this a compelling, if difficult, watch.

the film plays out, almost like a horror film, with our protagonist trapped in a seemingly idyllic location, where no-one can be trusted and escape seems to be an impossibility. the resignation of others who have been through the same experience and the complicit nature of the locals only serves to heighten the infuriatingly hopeless nature of bai's predicament. whilst fleeting moments of hope serve only to compound the horror of the situation...

good, but not easy...