Mang jing (2003)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Yang Li

Writer:

Yang Li (writer)

Release Date:

1 October 2003 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Two Chinese coal miners have hit upon the perfect scam: murder one of their fellow mine workers, make the death look like an accident...

Plot Keywords:

Scam | Mine | Money | Murder | Miner

Awards:

12 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Qiang Li	...	Song Jinming (as Yi Xiang Li)
Baoqiang Wang	...	Yuan Fengming
Shuangbao Wang	...	Tang Zhaoyang
Jing Ai	...	Xiao Hong
Zhenjiang Bao	...	First boss
Sun Wei	...	Tang Zhaoxia
Jun Zhao	...	Miss Ma
Yining Wang	...	Mamasan
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Li Cao
Yang Cao
Zhimei Dong
Changwen Jan
Zhenji Liu
Yan Li
Yongan Mao
Walhua Nie
Haiying Sun
Qincen Sun
Haiman Wu
Xin Xu
Sengyi Yue
Hongqiang Zhang
Lulu Zhang
Hong Zhao
Lei Zhi

Also Known As:

Blind Shaft (International: English title)
Blinder Schacht (Germany)
Hei xue: Black Snow

Runtime:

92 min | Argentina:95 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Country:

China | Germany | Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:M | Hong Kong:IIB | UK:15 | Argentina:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | USA:Unrated | Norway:11

Filming Locations:

Yi Ma District, Henan Province, China

Company:

Tag Spledour and Films

Trivia:

Based on Mainland Chinese writer Xingang Liu's short novel "Shen Mu" (Sacred Wood). The French translation of it is titled as its film adaptation, "Le puits aveugle".

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Telma demain (2005)

Heartless killers take center stage in small drama

BLIND SHAFT (Mang Jing)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

Yang Li's indictment of rural poverty and safety issues in the Chinese mining industry features Qiang Li and Wang Shuangbo as a couple of itinerant laborers who make a 'living' by befriending poor, unemployed travelers and taking work together in unsafe coal mines where they murder their newfound 'friends' and make it look like an accident, forcing unscrupulous mine owners to ensure their silence with a series of generous pay-offs. Their downfall is precipitated by the arrival of young, innocent Wang Baoqiang, with whom the two men form a paternal alliance and whose impending death fills Qiang with dreadful foreboding.

Either you like this kind of defiantly 'arthouse' stuff or you don't, and this one gets off to an unpromising start by asking us to empathize with a couple of heartless monsters who not only murder a man in cold blood, but use his death to line their own pockets before flushing his ashes down the toilet! But the movie picks up with the arrival of virginal Wang, a genuinely charming kid whose naivety and innocence stirs feelings of compassion within the two protagonists, leading to an ironic twist in the tale. Professionally assembled and shot on location in the heart of China's rural landscape, this is much more naturalistic than the clinically beautiful films we're used to seeing from Chinese filmmakers. Not for all tastes, but rewarding for those willing to stay the distance.

(Mandarin dialogue)