Blind Shaft

Starring:Qiang Li, Baoqiang Wang, Shuangbao Wang, Jing Ai, Zhenjiang Bao, Sun Wei, Jun Zhao, Yining Wang, Sengyi Yue, Li Cao, Lulu Zhang, Walhua Nie, Hongqiang Zhang, Xin Xu, Lei Zhi, Yan Li, Changwen Jan, Zhimei Dong, Zhenji Liu, Yongan Mao
Director: Yang Li
Studio: Kino International
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

fantastic movie about the pathetic chinese mining lives
A modern Chinese Chaucerian Tale
Part murderous crime story, part social commentary. A well-done, suspenseful movie.
The Blind Shaft.
Evokes a stark picture of modern China

Blind Shaft
Starring: Qiang Li , Baoqiang Wang , Shuangbao Wang , Jing Ai , and Zhenjiang Bao
Director: Yang Li
Manufacturer: Kino
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0002KPIJG
Release Date: 2004-08-17

Customer Reviews:

fantastic movie about the pathetic chinese mining lives.......2007-04-27

what a tough chinese lifestyle in mining industry. a very good screenplay with very good plot. the tricks, the killings, the good vs the bad, the innocent against the evil. worth watching and to be remembered.

A modern Chinese Chaucerian Tale.......2006-10-02

Judging from the opening credits of Blind Shaft, Li Yang obviously isn't troubled by an excess of modesty: 'Li Yang Presents/a Li Yang Production/Presented by Li Yang/a Li Yang film' - and that's not counting his credits on the end titles. I don't think I've seen anyone credit themselves so many times since Eddie Murphy's infamous Harlem Nights ('Eddie Murphy Productions presents An Eddie Murphy production of an Eddie Murphy film - Eddie Murphy in Harlem Nights Written by Eddie Murphy, Produced by Eddie Murphy, Directed by Eddie Murphy' - and that's by no means a comprehensive list). Luckily Li Yang isn't short of the talent to back up that kind of effrontery: this is easily one of the best films I've seen this century.

An almost Chaucerian tale set in the kind of China you don't see in the tourist brochures or even the average Chinese movie, the premise is simple: Li Yixiang and Wang Shuangbao go round the primitive coal mines in the provinces selecting a new itinerant worker to murder in a fake accident so that they can blackmail the mine owner into paying them compensation to hush it up and not file a report with the Party or the police. After all, "China has a shortage of everything but people." What's most surprising is the characterisation of the two sociopathic conmen, all-too recognisably human, primarily concerned with the future and education of their own children in an increasingly market-led economy. In many ways they're no worse than the corrupt mine owners who would happily kill them to hush up a scandal if paying off the police weren't three times as expensive: both are utterly indifferent to those who die to make them a little bit richer. Until, of course, one of them starts to take a genuinely paternal interest in their latest intended victim, a slow but guileless young boy trying to earn enough money to go back to school (Wang Baoqiang).

In a country as repressive as China, it's surprising just how critical Li Yang is of the corruption endemic throughout the country in the new capitalist society. Hookers sing subversive lyrics to old party songs on karaoke machines, arrests for corruption are everyday TV news fodder and the poor are left to fend for themselves. There's also not a single blade of grass to be seen in the entire film. This is a pitiless, harsh landscape, whether it be the slag heaps of the mines or the cities where crowds of workers hang around in search of a day's work. Nothing can grow here, least of all a conscience. But this isn't art-house fare or a self-important exercise in miserablism a la Ken Loach. It works as a drama as well, albeit one more focused on character than suspense (the ending is not exactly unexpected), and isn't without its comic moments. Very impressive indeed.

Part murderous crime story, part social commentary. A well-done, suspenseful movie........2006-06-27

Blind Shaft is just about as bleak, dry and cold as the North Chinese coal mines in winter where the story is set. The film is part crime drama, part social commentary. As the murderous intent of the two main characters becomes more complicated, the film builds a solid amount of suspense.

Tang (Li Yixiang) and Song (Wang Shuangbao), two hard, working-class men, have developed a scam that pays well. They befriend a stranger, convince him to play along with the story that he is a relative so that he'll find it easier to get work with them, then they go to a coal mine and get jobs digging deep underground. After a few days or weeks, they murder the man down in the shaft, fake an accident and work a deal with the mine operators. In exchange for not making a fuss about the death of a "relative," they accept a payment and go on their way. The mine managers know that if the police are called in, they'll just cost more in bribes than the payment to Tang and Song. And as one manager says, "China has a shortage of everything except people." Tang and Song have pulled this scam several times. Tang, the elder, is a hard case, calculating and without many feelings, with no sympathy for anyone. "You feel bad for him?" he asks Song about the last man they murdered, a peasant with a wife and a son he was trying to send to school with the wages he was earning. ""But who feels bad for you?"

Song is just as willing to murder, but he has a son, too. Some of the hush money they earn he sends to pay for his son's schooling. After the latest killing, the two spend time in a city using up their money on prostitutes. Then they spot a 16-year-old kid, fresh from a village, new to the city and trying to find work. Yuan (Wang Baoqiang) is naive, honest and trusting...a perfect candidate. It's easy to convince him to join them and for him to pose as Song's nephew. They head north and find work in a mine.

For the last hour of the film as the three dig with picks and shovels in the pitch-black mine shafts, with the only light coming from the small torches on their helmets, Tang moves steadily to kill the boy. Song finds reasons to hold back. He needs to lose his virginity, Song argues; it wouldn't be right to kill him before he has known a woman. "Okay," says Tang, "we'll get him laid today. Tomorrow we'll kill him." We need to give him a dinner celebration with wine before we kill him, Song argues, then we can kill him. All these delays take time. Song has evidently found something about the boy's honesty that is bothering him. Tang simply sees delay. He frowns but then smiles. He agrees to the delays. He is getting impatient with Song.

The end of the movie is quick, brutal, ironic and not entirely unexpected. Considering the chances for a happy future for ill-educated working men in China, whether they're grown-ups or 16-year-olds, there's probably no other ending possible. The movie is as much a bleak look at the prospects of working-class men and women, especially in the coal mines, as it is a crime story. Li Yang, who has a background making documentaries, used hand-held cameras to get into the mining operations and to follow the actors around. We also get a realistic look at life in a Chinese city. I thought the movie was fascinating, with the end depressing and unsettling.

The DVD looks fine. The extras include a biography and filmography of the director and a stills gallery.

The Blind Shaft........2006-02-24

Welcome to modern day China, a land turned ruthlessly capitalistic, providing fertile breeding ground for con-men who go the extra mile, ruthlessly. The paraphrased words here of one of the main protagonists sums up the mercantile jadedness quite succinctly: Nothing is real anymore, except a mother's love.
In this intriguing film of low-key suspense put out by Li Yang, the plot centers on two cold-blooded con men who operate in the northen part of Asia's most powerful yet troubled country. These wolves in sheeps' clothing run scams against unsafe mining companies, the likes of which haven't tormented the American worker in decades. Integral to their ongoing machinations are strays they pick up in the big city; young men from impoverished villages who come looking for scarce work and even scarcer honor, to support the loved ones back home and maintain a sense of traditional dignity. Ripe plums for the plucking.
Li Yang's portrayal of today's somewhat Red China is both disturbing yet interesting, but not in a train-wreck fascinating sort of way. The folk on vivid display are but fifty-odd years yanked from an ancient way of life, thrust for a second time into a newly emerging system, the latter almost as chaotic in its long birthing as the earlier attempt at collectivism, and presently just as unsure. The realistic scenes that unfold of casehardened citizens working, plying or roaming the harsh and dirty streets of the city impart an overarching sentiment of bleak prospect. Accentuated from beginning to end are inadequately addressed challenges of today and future China: with so many people to provide safe work, plentiful food and adequate housing for, it seems to be herculean tasks the pseudo-communist, hyper-capitalist government is just not up to. Exasperating the difficulties is the disregard of basic civil rights we Westerners take for granted, because in contemporary China, where now almost everything's for sale, the film has the viewer believe it is very unlikely the authorities ever make a comprehensive effort at keeping accurate records of one's true and legal authenticity. That dysfunctional social and legal problem of essential identity plays into one of this production's most starkest and frightening statements: a single solitary not easily identifiable Chinese citizen can not only be easily victimized, but die without hardly causing a stir. Untraceable identity is also a theme crucial on more than one level as the story-line plays out.
Also explored is the damage done to the character of the Chinese everyman. With not enough developed resources, so many must barely get by, all the while chafing under a capricious, strictly market-minded government-one not by the people, nor for the people and certainly not of the people, but overly concerned with national results at the expense of individual dignity. Such a way of life cannot help but be prone to produce much human sadness, which can make it distressingly easy for too many souls to be corrupted, which unfortunately not only enables but encourages the basest of men to inflict upon others terrible evil.
If you like suspenseful plots and interesting individual and national character studies in exotically perilous environments, then I highly recommend Blind Shaft. It's an engaging way to spend 90 minutes getting an incisively sneak peek into the underbelly of the most populous country on the planet. And if one is inclined to doubt the veracity of this film, that they might consider this video display as little more than some guy trying to trade on unfair characterizations of Mother China, they should also take this into consideration prior to renting or buying this DVD: The film is banned in China.

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Evokes a stark picture of modern China.......2006-02-18

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.

Average customer rating:

Blind Shaft
Starring: Blind Shaft
Manufacturer: Phantom
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Album Description

Blind Shaft concerns the fate of two coal miners who earn their living by staging accidents that kill fellow workers they have passed off as relatives and collecting the compensation due family members. Directed by Li Yang, and starring Qiang Li & Shuangbao Wang. Original Mandarin (Henanese dialect) dialogue with English & Chinese subtitles. NTSC/all code. 92 mins. Slipcase. Megastar. 2003.

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