Xing Yan For the record, Kekexili is part of Qinghai Province, not Tibet!There are heaps of Tibetan ethnic minorities in Qinghai Province and Gansu Province.The poachers mostly Hui Muslim from Hualong , Qinghai in which has its reputation for illegally manufacturing guns and give a headache to Chinese government . And the "breathtaking scenery" can be spotted in most provinces in western China (Qinghai, Gansu, Xinjiang,etc.),not only Tibet. Why would some hypocrites always set their mind on Tibet . Spare your worthless prepossession, leave Tibet alone, then you can truly understand this movie. All in all, it is a good movie. Simple, to the point , ruthless.The patrolmen are respectably stupid, yet exactly this Stu**NE*s has made this movie. But i have to say nothing important than human life! Riti is failed as leader and protector, he shouldn't rick bothers life when he clearly know they are outnumbered and ill-equipped. I feel sorry for the human more than animals. People who living in that area living a harsh life that they didn't create in the first place, it is basically desert due to the mother nature. Doesn't matter how you animal protector* thinks, it won't work for this situation as most of the poachers and ski8ners had no choice, they need to survive. The only measure to protect the rare animal in Tibetan plateau is to protect human, improve their living condition! Human- oriented principle is essential. Human there are struggling to survive, people gotta eat. If they can live a life with warmth and fullness, they will leave the animal alone.After all who would want to risk their lives of getting shot for smuggling animal fur?

lyx-1 This has got to be one of the most AMAZING films ever made, not only for the astounding cinematography, the quiet, subtle, yet overpowering drama, the incredible pacing of the story, the compelling character portraits, but also for very intelligently conceived cinema verite techniques. It is an extremely moving film, though it may be one of the most difficult movies I ever sat through, both the beauty and brutality are overwhelmingly relentless.Based on a true story, the film demonstrates a rare instance where Life is fuller, richer and more interesting than Fiction. The dramas that Hollywood feeds us pale in comparison to the colour of humanity and the depths of emotional courage portrayed in this film. It is a film to be experienced, and ranks right up there with classics like Nanook of the North, Das Boot, etc., please don't ever miss it.

Rey Alvarez **Mild spoiler** So, poaching is a big problem in Tibet, eh? Some moral Chinese fighting poaching and extinction of antelopes in Tibet. How moving!! But may I ask what caused the poaching and extinction of animals in Tibet? These were caused by China's illegal and amoral occupation of Tibet and greedy exploitation of Tibetan people. The attitude of the Chinese Communist government, which doesn't give a damn about Tibetan people or its culture, is well reflected in the attitude of Chinese criminals who go to Tibet. These criminals do not care about Tibetan people, its culture or the land. They poach Tibetan animals themselves and encourage poverty-stricken Tibetans to poach so they can make money. The quickest solution to the poaching problem in Tibet is for China to return Tibet to its people and get out of Tibet!! Why didn't this movie give us this obvious and most logical solution to poaching in Tibet? Treating extinction of some antelopes in Tibet as if it is the greatest problem in Tibet is absolutely laughable. The greatest problem in Tibet is illegal invasion and occupation of Tibet by China and Chinese people. Is the Beijing journalist played by Liang Qi totally stupid or totally blind? Can't he see this obvious problem? Does the producer of this film think that just because they made some film condemning the poaching and extinction of some species of antelopes in Tibet, the Tibetans will love Chinese, who stole their land and massacred their people? Showing some token kindness is not going to erase the crimes committed by Chinese against Tibetan people.This movie is a disgusting self-congratulatory nonsense made by some government influenced Chinese film producers. Although it is much more subtle, this is a propaganda movie just like the anti-Jewish Nazi film "The Eternal Jew." I am nauseated to read the high praise written by some Americans and Japanese about this propaganda film. Did these Americans and Japanese lower themselves to the level of Chinese government mouthpiece? By the way, why was this movie awarded Don Quixote Award in Berlin? Are those Berlin judges insane? I have repeatedly criticized this movie because of its disgusting propaganda. I am glad that my repeated criticism has angered some self-appointed Chinese patriots. In China any criticism of the state and its policy is punished severely and the critics are silenced swiftly. If my comment against this film is a criticism of Chinese government, I cannot help it. One cannot criticize dangerous propaganda films like this without criticizing the underlying policies of the government which made the film. It is like commenting about a disgusting film like "Eternal Jew" without attacking Nazism.These Chinese patriots cannot silence me here in the United States, a country of free speech. If these Chinese patriots were not thick-skinned enough to take criticism, I would tell them, "Welcome to the world of free speech."

roland-104 Here is a film with serious technical and narrative flaws that can easily be forgiven because the movie gives us a wondrous gaze into a stupendous, exotic world, stretching far beyond what we have known or seen before.This is a docudrama based on facts about people who live on a Tibetan plain four miles high which shelters Tibetan antelope, a species that had been threatened with extinction in recent years because of aggressive poaching to harvest highly prized pelts. Poaching became a serious problem here in about 1985. After years of witnessing declining herds, the native people in the region in 1993 took matters into their own hands, forming their own mountain patrol to interdict poaching.The patrol served this goal admirably for a few short years, until 1996, when the increasing hardships of sustaining these efforts coincided with a government decision to declare the plain a wildlife preserve. The patrol was disbanded and, since then, the numbers of antelope have gradually increased, up to 30,000 or more at the time this film was made.The story is a dramatic reenactment of events presumably typical of the mountain patrol period (1993-96). Captain Ritai is about to lead a monthly tour of the region, a caravan of three SUVs transporting about 10 heavily armed men, and, this time, also a journalist, Gayu, from Bejing, who is accepted by the men because his father is Tibetan.Besides the vast flat windswept snowy plain itself, and the massive mountains that border it in the distance, we witness evidence of wholesale slaughtering of antelope (one scene shows the vulture-cleaned carcasses of over 400), armed clashes with poachers, several shooting deaths and injuries, severe cases of pulmonary edema from exertion during chases, and a death when quicksand entraps one of Ritai's men.The story, which begins strongly enough with the shooting of a patrol member by poachers, gradually loses the traction of credibility as Ritai seems to abandon any semblance of good judgment, pursuing the leaders of the poacher gang even as his supplies of food and fuel dwindle to the danger point, and attrition of his team from illness and injury mounts. So the story goes, the journalist Gayu was the only survivor of this particular patrol, and his subsequent stories published in the nation's capital were influential in bringing about government action to establish the preserve.Anyone with a thirst for knowing more about extraordinary and inaccessible cultures should rush to see this film, flawed though it is. You will see the reverence for life of these people, who take the time even to pile up hundreds of antelope carcasses to burn in a funeral pyre. You see the tender manner in which these courageous men embrace, knowing that the rigors of their mission may mean death before another meeting. You enter a remote brothel of the sort established in Tibet only recently as a byproduct of Chinese occupation. You discover that the men must pay dearly in cash to obtain emergency medical aid for patrol members who are ill. And there's more.Kekexili, by the way, means beautiful mountains and girls, we and the journalist Gayu are told. My grade: B 6/10.