arthur_tafero So you think "In Cold Blood" was chilling? Or how about "The Honeymoon Killers"? "Strangers on a Train"? "The Onion Field"? or "Rope"? Most people think "Silence of the Lambs" is the ultimate serial-killer film; and it is very good, I must say. But these are all Disney tales compared to this Chinese film."Blind Shaft", directed and written by Li Yang is the best serial-killer film ever made. Sez who? Sez me; I have seen them all; and this is it. Most serial-killer films deal with a clever cop and a crazed killer, who eventually trips himself up. That is not the case here. As in the film "Rope" by Hitchcock, there are two antagonists; partners in the unspeakable. But in "Rope" we are only talking about one victim. Multiply that by several planned killings, and you have the intensity of "Blind Shaft" . Two working-class miners who concoct an ingenious scheme to make lots of money by killing completely innocent victims. It is absolutely fascinating to watch. Killing to them is like taking a shower or eating lunch; just part of the day. A rare treat if you are lucky enough to see the film.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU A very bleak story. Two miners are teaming together to entrap a young teenager, underage if possible, on the run for any reason whatsoever into coming to work with them underground. The mines are managed by bosses who do not want problems. So they have some kind of premium, or contract for the casualties of accidents, 30,000 yuans per dead. The two miners who want to be rich as fast as possible kill the third one as soon as they can, pocket the premium and run away to the next mine, and the next escaping teenager. It is a simple business, and yet it is not that simple. It is dark in the mines and you do not see very well. So one day, circumstances will reshuffle the pack of cards. One of the two will be impatient and the two will end on the wrong side of some road, of some dynamite. And guess who is going to get the money, and the two urns with the ashes? The film is not interesting because of that, because we more or less know what is going to happen. That kind of undertaker's job cannot last very long. What is interesting is the realistic vision of China's industrial and mining areas today. People have to move away from their families to find work. They have to pay for their schooling or the schooling of their children. They also have the opportunity to work whenever they want. Working conditions are hard. Living conditions are hard too. But It is not that long ago that we had the same situation in Europe, and the present situation in China is what we had in Europe at the end of the 1950s or even beginning of the 1960s. It is only in 1968 that the situation really improved in France with a 13% average pay rise in May 1968. It is exactly what is happening in China this year with a minimum 20% hike on the minimum wage all over China, and the more developed a province the higher the hike is. It may create some inflation. It may cause the yuan to go up slightly. It may make exports slightly more difficult. But the country is dynamic enough not to recapture in productivity what they lose in labor cost. They are catching up so fast that we may not even see them overtaking us. And that is the interest of this film. It does not show a bleak situation centering on exploitation, the hardships and suffering of the working class. It centers on what the desire to catch up with wealth may produce in some minds, even may make some become criminals. A society like this one that is growing, as for their industry, at a 13.9% rate may make some dizzy and envious and impatient to reach the object of their dream faster than honestly possible. An interesting film that shows China is also catching up in that industry too.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Dennis Littrell 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!)

kintopf432 I knew literally nothing about this film going into it, and I found its opening sequence – with the gritty cinematography, the squalid, almost alien setting, the inky darkness of the mine, and the sudden shock of violence – to be quite engaging and sinister, even frightening. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the film was to be none of those things. "Mang jing" might have made a great satiric or absurdist horror film – its concept is fascinating and macabre – but Yang Li's treatment of the idea is surprisingly bland. Oh, it limps forward with subtlety and reasonably good taste, but in the end it's barely memorable for any specific element. Even its politics, which the promotional text (oddly) suggests is to be such a huge factor in the overall mix, turns out to be rather tame and unremarkable. Disappointing, really. 5.5 out of 10.