Mang jing (2003) Reviews

• unique serial killer film

  Buddy-512005-02-14

  Written and directed by Yang Li, "Blind Shaft" provides us with a fascinating twist on the serial killer scenario. In most such films, the killer is usually relegated to the role of a shadowy antagonist whose basic function is to allow a brilliant investigator to outwit and outsmart him and bring him to justice in time for the closing credits. Not so in "Blind Shaft." For here the killers themselves take center stage and there isn't a single law officer in sight to foil the plan or mitigate our fear about what is going to happen. Song and Yuan are two struggling Chinese laborers who've come upon an ingenious but grizzly scheme to make money. They befriend a stranger who is desperate for employment and convince him to come work with them in a nearby mine. All he has to do is agree to pass himself off as a relative of one of the two men. When they have their unsuspecting victim alone in the mine shaft, Song and Yuan cold-bloodedly murder him, claiming that the death was the result of a mining accident. Eager to avoid a scandal, the boss of the mine invariably pays a generous sum of money to the dead man's "relatives," whereupon Song and Yuan take their ill-gotten gains, lure another man into their trap, and head off to another mine to repeat the scenario. What separates "Blind Shaft" from so many American tales about serial killers is that Song and Yuan are not portrayed as writhing, eye-rolling, hand-rubbing psychopaths, devising elaborate schemes to torture their victims and antagonize the authorities. Rather, these two killers approach their "business" in the most banal, matter-of-fact (i.e. "businesslike") way imaginable, making them all that much more chilling and believable. We feel we really could encounter people like these in our own lives. Their acts of murder are no more extraordinary to them than folding their clothes, ordering at a restaurant, or consorting with local prostitutes. In fact, the film spends far more of its time observing the mundane minutiae of their day-to-day existence than detailing the mechanics of their crimes. To these two men, killing is a means to survival (much of the money they earn from their killings they send back to their own relatives), and no moral or ethical code or twinge of compassion is allowed to stand in the way of ensuring that survival. And if it does… It is their utter disregard for human life, their indifference to the intrinsic value of the individual that make them and their story so discomfiting and disturbing. Yet, even in this darkest of scenarios, Li gives us a glimmer of hope. When the latest intended victim turns out to be a naïve 16-year-old lad looking for money so that he can resume his studies, one of the killers begins to have second thoughts about what they have planned for him, primarily because he himself has a son who is also a student. The film, thus, becomes a gripping and fascinating study of whether or not even the most amoral person has a line beyond which he will not cross. Yet, what is most unsettling about the film is the way in which the two killers can treat their victim so "humanely" - they even insist on paying for a visit to a prostitute so that the boy won't die never having had sex - all the while knowing full well what they intend to do to him. What monster in any horror film could be scarier than that? "Blind Shaft" is not a thriller in the conventional sense of the term. It relies less on plot and more on observation, as we follow this fascinating trio through the brothels and marketplaces of rural China, seeing a world and a lifestyle wholly unfamiliar to most of us. Li remains utterly objective and detached as he records the doings - sometimes major, sometimes trivial - of Song and Yuan as they go through their day. Stylistically, the director brings an almost documentary feel to the story, and by dedicating as much screen time to the trivial details as to the murder plot itself, he conveys the sense of moral equivalence and bankruptcy that defines the characters' way of thinking. With no melodramatic background music to cheapen the suspense, Li allows the horror to develop naturally, out of a situation in which conscience and basic human compassion have been essentially drained. As we get to know this kid, and as his two intended killers get to know him as well, we can do little but watch helplessly as the elements of the plot move inexorably to their foregone conclusion. Through this approach, "Blind Shaft" generates a kind of "suspense" that the typical slick Hollywood thriller can only dream of achieving. With brilliant performances from the three leads, Li forces us to look into the darkness that often lurks in the heart of Man. It is a frightening but unforgettable vision.

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• Interesting and worthy but not wholly satisfying

  bob the moo2004-05-02

  Song and Tang are two conmen who make their money through murder and deception. They live among the unemployed drifters of China, latch onto lonely young men, convince them to pretend to be one of their relatives and then the three get a job together in a mine. After a few days, Song and Tang kill their companion and make it look like a cave in - extorting the bosses for compensation in return for silence. They have been doing this for a while to good profit and plan to continue when they pick up the sixteen year old Yuan, creating a moral crisis for Song. I was not sure what this film was about when I sat to watch it but the fact that it had been made as an underground film (literally) without the permission of the Government and that was enough reason for me to give it a bit of my time. As one would expect from such a film, the plot is a mix of narrative and comment. The comment is delivered in the form of us seeing the working conditions and the poverty `enjoyed' by the citizens who are outside of what we would consider the `proper' economic system. In this regard the film is interesting if not totally gripping. The narrative is just as gripping but it is less satisfying as it seems to be secondary to the other aspects of the film. The characters do just enough to carry the story along, in fact they win over the audience well enough for us to care about all the main players - essential in a film that is driven more by them than by action. To that end, the cast (a mix of professionals and non-professionals) deliver the goods pretty well. Yuan's innocence and dedication to the characters is key to the film and Wang carries this off well. The elder Wang is also good but has a simpler character to deliver - however it is to his credit that his `bad' guy never lost my interest. Li is the best thing in the film even if he goes through an fairly recognisable crisis of confidence. Yang Li's documentary background shows through with the realistic direction and the great use of locations - all the more impressive as many of them must have been difficult to shoot in. However, the lack of events means that the narrative is a little less than satisfying when it comes to the end. We more or less know where it is going and the film uses the ending as much as a closure to the narrative as it is a further comment of the people's place within the system. Despite this it is still worth seeing even if it may not match the hype that the awards and reviews on this page would have you believe. Overall a good film that is worthy with good direction and acting even if the commentary of society and narrative don't sit as well together as one would hope.

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• Combines gritty realism with uncompromising social commentary

  howard.schumann2004-12-13

  Although many disasters go unreported by mine operators afraid of prosecution, annual deaths in China's coalmines are thought to exceed 10,000. Only last week, 166 miners were killed in a fire in the Chenjiashan Coal Mine in China's Shaanxi Province, a disaster that came shortly after an earlier explosion in Central China in which 148 miners were killed. Local media reports suggest negligence and greed as the causes of the deadly fire at the Chenjiashan mine, specifically by management's pursuit of a year-end bonus for extra-production while failing to take the time to properly ventilate a shaft. Blind Shaft, the savagely humorous first feature by Li Yang, dramatizes conditions in China's mines, making a direct attack on China's headlong dash to capitalism where greed seems more important than human life. Banned in China, the film combines gritty realism with uncompromising social commentary. Adapted from a novel by Liu Qingbang, itinerant coalminers Song Jinming (Li Yixiang) and Tang Zhaoyang (Wang Shuangbao) devise a scheme to extort money from corrupt mine owners by convincing a fellow worker to pose as their relative. When they kill him and fake an industrial accident, they collect the compensation owed to a relative from the more than willing owner, eager to prevent an investigation into his mine's deteriorating condition. Tang is older and more cynical. Song still has plans to live a good life that includes schooling for his teenage son and both dutifully send part of their blood money home to their family, justifying their criminal behavior by saying "China has a shortage of everything except people". Short of money, Tang recruits a naïve sixteen-year old boy, Yuan Fengming (Wang Baoqiang), whom he spots queuing for work in a city square but their carefully laid out plans begin to show cracks. The boy reminds Song of his own son and he develops protective feelings for him. Yuan, whose father may have been killed by the same scam artists, is anxious to find any kind of work to earn enough money to enroll in school and attaches himself to Song who pretends that he is his uncle. The boy, though a runaway out on his own, does not have any street smarts and his innocence is a sharp contrast to the wily scam operators. In his spare time, he reads History textbooks because they are "interesting" and spends his wages (after wiring some home) to buy the two conspirators a chicken, completely unsuspecting what their intentions are. When the two find work in a nearby mine, Tang is eager to get on with the business, but Song keeps putting things off. The two plan to murder the boy but first want to make his last days a bit pleasurable, introducing him to wine, women and song. In a revealing scene at a bar, Song offers to sing a song called "Long live socialism", but he is reminded that the words have now been changed to "The reactionaries were never overcome. They came back with their US dollars, liberating China". Suspense increases until the film turns in an unexpected but deeply rewarding direction. Blind Shaft won the Silver Bear at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival and has received almost unanimous critical praise in the West. It is one of the best films I've seen this year.

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• Several film directors, such as Hitchcock, Kieslowski, and David Lynch, have passionate attachment to this gap - the death drive that resists the overlapping of the Real with the reality, and now a Chinese d

  chenlingshan2003-11-01

  ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Two sequences hold the key to the Real of what Li Yang's debut is about. One is about the scene, in which the prostitute who deflowers Feng, pumps into him in a post office, ambiguously greeting him by sliding her hand through his shoulder. When she walks away, Feng turns his head over and looks at her backside with a bit sweet smile. In a screening session of the film (in Beijing University, Oct.2003), Li Yang is asked what his intention to incorporate this seemingly irrelevant sequence in the narrative. His answer is that his mode of film making is not Hollywood style - the transparent narrative which strictly follows cause-and-effect lineage narrative. The second one is about the end, in which Feng sees off Zhang and Wang at the site of a crematorium, ambiguously watching their bodies being pushed into the furnace (a MC shot of the foot when the body is pushed into the furnace), followed by a MC shot of the black smoke. Li Yang is criticized to make this scene rather redundant and sentimental. To me, this end is the key to the Real of the diegetic reality, which answers the first sequence in question as above mentioned. In fact, there are mutual blind spots in the eyes of these two parties. If one looks at the depiction of Feng purely from the perspectives of Zhang and Wang, Feng's pleasant reminiscence of his first sexual encounter with a whore, is actually invincible to Zhang and Wang. Similarly, one could find another blind spot in the eyes of Feng as well, regarding the story of Zhang and Wang. The trust of Feng in Zhang and Wang is sustained until the moment Zhang hit the head of Wang. Although the audience is very clear about the motivation disclosed by the narrative's all-knowing point-of-view (pov), it is opaque to Feng. The final scene in the shaft, if one follows strictly from the perspective of Feng, logically would leave the impression on Feng that these two adults have some conflicts unknown to him, and he accidentally witnesses the murder of Wang. Such a mutual mis-recognition, of course, is presupposed by Li Yang, from which the director's subjectivity emerges. It is true that the narrative presents a simple moral view of life that the evil will be finally punished. The all-knowing pov, like a spectre smoothly wondering around and showing every aspect of characters to the spectator, plays an important role in leaving such a impression. The benefit of such a all-knowing pov is that the director can create an illusion which satisfies the latent desire of the audience - bad guys must be punished. Scrutinizing the narrative closely, one could find that the existence of the real law is suspended in the diegetic reality. Li Yang has emphasized Feng's innocence by depicting his love of reading historical books, the responsibility for his family, his sympathy to a child begging in the street, and his respect for the adult. The forced choice to have a sex with a prostitute, although is planned by Zhang and Wang, is actually a contingent act in Feng's life as he does not know their intention. He most likely would think that they want him to pass a kind of ritual, so he can be treated by them as an adult. Retrospectively, it is discernible that Feng actually enjoys having a sex with a whore so he smiles later when he is alone in a bathtub. Therein resides the significance of a seemingly irrelevant sequence of Feng's rendezvous with the same prostitute in a postal office. Isn't Feng's ambiguous look at her walking off betrays his desire for her, which no longer completely renders him shameful as before? It is from this sequence that a kind of motion or the transference is set off, in which the attitude of life from Zhang and Wang starts to be assimilated into Feng. Only with this implicit transference in mind, can the significance of the end be discernible. If Feng's forced choice to have sex with a whore opens his vision of life, as a kind of unexpected enlightenment by the reign of Eros, then the diminish of Zhang and Wang's body into a black smoke corresponds to the reign of Thanatos (God of Death). It is worth emphasizing that the Real of the narrative is that Feng has no idea about two adults' murderous plan, yet the diegetic reality is that the moral lesson is still imposed by an accident, which in fact is the displacement of the law with the Freudian-Lacanian notion of the Thing. The evaporation of these two adults' corpses in the end creates a void, from which the Thing emerges, just like the spectre of the first victim in the beginning returns as the all-knowing pov. Therein resides the meaning of Feng's look at the black smoke as a witness of their death. He will be haunted by the spectre of the dead forever, because the Real of their death is unknown to him. This blind spot is strictly from the perspective of Feng, which is not in coincidence with the illusion created by all-knowing pov of the narrative. It is discernible only by looking awry from the perspective of Feng, and the gap between the Real and the diegetic reality is caused by what Freud designates as the death drive. Several film directors, such as Hitchcock, Kieslowski, and David Lynch, have passionate attachment to this gap - the death drive that resists the overlapping of the Real with the reality, and now a Chinese director seems to be a potential one to join this club. More importantly, Li Yang's insistence has appeared from acute social awareness of current problems of illegal coal mining in China, which becomes the convincing and catchy backdrop of a fictive story.

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• Evokes a stark picture of modern China

  DeeNine-22006-02-17

  What happened at the start of this movie down in the mine shaft confused me so much I had to go back to the scene and view it again. That really didn't help because it seemed that three men--one very young; another older, perhaps in his early thirties; and the third perhaps in his forties--go down into the coal mine and after working for a while take a break in the semidarkness. And then after some talk the two older men bludgeon the youngest to death. That in fact is what happened. Turns out that drifting miners Tang, the older, and Song have dreamed up a murderous scheme in which they recruit young men to go with them to work in the mines. They make the young man pretend that he is related to them. Then they kill him, fake a cave-in and demand hush money from the boss of the mine. We see this work one time, and then the two men are off to the town to spend their ill-gotten lucre. And then it's back to recruitment and a new mine. Part of the logic of this premise is the fear of the mine operators that if there is an accident, there will be an investigation and the mine will be closed down. So they pay hush money to the families of those killed to keep the authorities away. How realistic this is I have no idea. The scam certainly is a brutal, bestial way to make a living that cannot go on for long. In the next part of the movie Tang and Song find a poor 16-year-old country boy in the city who is looking for work. Director Li Yang carefully shows us a lot of interaction among the three as the next setup develops at a new coal mine. What makes all this so interesting are the glimpses we get of life in modern China, the wretched, dangerous coal mines, the cities teeming with all their poverty and industry, their hustles and indifference. The landscapes are not lush with greenery; instead it is cold and bleak and the ground is mostly barren. This is not a travel log for tourists, nor is this an ode to the communist state. What we see is a rural and agrarian society perverted by a forced industrialization. We see the housing for the miners. We see them at meal times and at play. We see what they eat and drink, how they amuse themselves. We see the great dependence that China has on coal. There is a lot of coal in China and it is used for heating and cooking and for firing kilns and crematoriums. It runs the industrial state. Coal burns dirty and pollutes. Although Li Yang does not dwell on it or show us the poisonous clouds that hang over many Chinese cities, we nonetheless get the picture. Perhaps the most evocative shot of all is the last one. A body with a blanket over it is shoved into the crematorium oven. The door is slammed shut; the fires incinerate. The camera pans up, up to the top of the smokestack and we see puffy tendrils of smoke emitting. That's it. Run the credits. The simplicity of the story starkly told and the low-budget realism of the cinematography lend to this film a sense of truth and immediacy not found in more carefully contrived productions. (Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

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