Mang jing (2003)

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

Directed by
Yang Li

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Yang Li		writer

Produced by
Yang Li	....	producer

Original Music by
Yadong Zhang

Cinematography by
Yonghong Liu

Film Editing by
Yang Li
Karl Riedl

Art Direction by
Jun Yang

Sound Department
Wang Yu	....	sound

Production Companies

• Tag Spledour and Films

Distributors

• Kino Video (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• AmaFilms (2004) (Greece) (theatrical)
• Kino International (2004) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Océan Films
• Optimum Releasing (????) (UK) (DVD)

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, 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)

deserved to win

This powerful film just took top honors at the Tribeca Film Festival, winning in the category of best narrative feature. All the competitors were first-time feature directors, so don't expect Bertollucci here, but this is a view of working-class Chinese characters that will grip you from start to finish.

Thankfully, the programmers at this festival are daring enough to support this film in spite of the Chinese government's ban on it. Let's hope it finds

distribution soon.

Why do we love movie gangsters? What is it about the good-badman that

draws us in to Cagney at his selfish best, or a zillion noir protagonists? All of that is here, and more in the writing, and the low-key acting never threatens to spoil the bleak mood, either. This is DETOUR, PATHS OF GLORY, SWEET

SIXTEEN (Ken Loach's latest) territory. The scene where the two miners sing

karaoke, wasted with two sex workers in a cheap brothel is enough to make a

government blacklist and everyone's else's must-see list at the same time.

These men have spent their lives being exploited by crooked mine owners and

are fighting back in a crude and _extremely_ callous way, and the reserve with which the scene plays out conveys so much more than even the best socialist

realism of Sayles' MATEWAN ever did. (A great film in its' own right, don't get me wrong. But the situations for coal miners depicted in BLIND SHAFT are all

the more sobering since it is contemporary.)

Don't sweat the ending of a tale like this. First-time directors should always get a pass on wrapping a film up. If they get the characters across convincingly (and here they do) then what comes in the last reel hardly matters. Gangsters back in the day knew enough to leave a theater before the moral was delivered. The real message is in the body of a film, where the mirror is held up to real life.