Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

Inspired by four shocking, allegedly true, events that forced the world's fastest growing economy into a period of self-examination, written and directed by master filmmaker Jia Zhangke (The World, Still Life), this daring, poetic and grand-scale film focuses on four characters, each living in different provinces of China, who are driven to violent ends.

"The violence hangs over the film like a haze: gunshot wounds to the face, ugly and very real-looking fistfights. This is a bitter, jagged, disaffected drama, pessimistic about China, pessimistic about the whole world. One character asks another if he ever feels like travelling abroad. 'Why would I?' he replies. 'Everywhere is broke. Foreigners come here now.' Jia Zhangke's movie gives us a brutal unwelcome." (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

Director/Writer Jia won the 2013 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Screenplay.

Thanks to Arrow Films