An ex cop and his ex partner decide to follow up on investigation of a series of murders that ended their careers and shamed them, when identical murders begin again.
Wu Hongyan is a young woman working as a prison guard during executions of female convicts. She feels lonely after her husband died, and she takes a night train to another city to visit a ... See full summary »
The Runeberg family is an ordinary middle class family, with a house in a suburb, a car and three children. By vacationing in a rented house by the sea, the hope is that the tension and ... See full summary »
A Russian woman living in Memphis with a much older rock-'n'-roll legend experiences a personal awakening when her husband's estranged son comes to visit.
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They go from town to town, a big top on their backs, their show over their shoulder. They bring dreams and disorder to our lives. They are ogres, giants. They've devoured the theater and ... See full summary »
Director:
Léa Fehner
Stars:
François Fehner,
Marion Bouvarel,
Marc Barbé
When his long-time disappeared father is entering his life again, Jean-Luc, a successful doctor, has no option but to face his own life story. Will he ever be able to forget and forgive?
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The tempestuous love story between Fernando, an older man who has recently returned to his crime-ridden drug capitol hometown of Medellin, Colombia and the gun-happy 16-year-old assassin ... See full summary »
Director:
Barbet Schroeder
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Anderson Ballesteros,
Juan David Restrepo
An ex cop and his ex partner decide to follow up on investigation of a series of murders that ended their careers and shamed them, when identical murders begin again.
The literal translation of the Chinese title is 'Daylight Fireworks'. This is the name of the nightclub where Zhang learns a major lead, and is also echoed in the last scene. See more »
This 2014 Golden Berlin Bear winner (with a rare second Silver Berlin Bear award of BEST ACTOR for Fan Liao) is Chinese director Yi'nan Diao's third feature, and his first to be shown in cinemas and harvested over one hundred million RMB, roughly equivalent to 16 million dollars, thanks to the international accolades it received. Its original title can be translated verbatim as "White Day Fireworks", it is the name of a nightclub which would be revealed as a crucial thread to a murder case, furthermore Diao arranges a literal daytime firework show to climax the film in the coda, meanwhile, its official English title: Black Coal, Thin Ice, betrays the locations which relation all the murder cases during a five-year span.
The film starts in 1999, in an unspecified city in China's North-east province Heilongjiang, Zhang (Liao) is a recently-divorced policeman, during a fresh case of a dismembered body scattered in sundry collieries where an I.D. card indicates the dead is Liang (Xuebing Wang), but due to his negligence, two fellow policemen are killed in operation while Zhang is also wounded. After that, the time jumps to 2004, now Zhang is a life-beaten drunkard and works as a security guard, two new dismembered bodies have been found, all link back to Liang's wife Wu (Gwei), whose mysterious mien attracts Zhang, he embarks on a personal investigation to follow her, strike up a conversation with her in the dry-cleaner where she works, and eventually ask her out for an ice-skating date. But at the same time, danger is lurking around him too, is Liang really dead? Or is Wu as innocent as she looks? Can all the mysteries be brought into daylight in the end or is there another lie involved? Diao smugly leaves an semi-opening end with many spurious clues (e.g. the cremains Wu buried under the tree Vs. her apparent lie of discarding it over the sea during the inquiry), to prompt viewers for disparate interpretations.
This film is to a great extent inscribed as an art-house fare with its lurid background or foreground colour embedding in almost every scene, the visual palette is meticulously chosen and also overtly, Diao is a faithful apprentice of symbolism, from a battered ladybug on the bedsheets in the opening sequence, to an abrupt introduction of a deserted horse left by junkmen, until the firework finale reaches the hallmarks of its veiled fatalism pretentiousness buried in his not-so-justifiable script, there must be a more plausible reason behind a redemption by right of admitting a murder one might not execute, it unfortunately gives an impression of a desperate trick to glaze over the banality of the story, to romanticize the damsel-in-distress reverie.
The whole story is a dancing-on-the-edge between a sex-driven anti-hero and a irresolute femme fatale, with a jarring red herring which leads to nowhere. But the two leads are giving fantastic performances, Fan Liao breathes out the irascible mentality stinkingly inflicted on a non-starter who clings to the last straw and strives to feel the ardor of living again. While Lun Mei Gwei from Taiwan, may seem to be an odd choice for a North-east girl, heedfully, she doesn't have many lines to give away her southern accent, instead, relies on her body language and facial expressions, her air of mystique is the most enticing feature entraps audience even in the film's banalest moment.
Winning over the likes of BOYHOOD (2014, 8/10) and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014, 8/10) in Berlin inevitably becomes an over-achievement for this intense crime-thriller, but put it among its Chinese peers of the same year, the film can excel most of them hands down, as one of the must-see from the over-ballooning market where ingrainedly burdened with shoddy soil damages its own commodities.
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This 2014 Golden Berlin Bear winner (with a rare second Silver Berlin Bear award of BEST ACTOR for Fan Liao) is Chinese director Yi'nan Diao's third feature, and his first to be shown in cinemas and harvested over one hundred million RMB, roughly equivalent to 16 million dollars, thanks to the international accolades it received. Its original title can be translated verbatim as "White Day Fireworks", it is the name of a nightclub which would be revealed as a crucial thread to a murder case, furthermore Diao arranges a literal daytime firework show to climax the film in the coda, meanwhile, its official English title: Black Coal, Thin Ice, betrays the locations which relation all the murder cases during a five-year span.
The film starts in 1999, in an unspecified city in China's North-east province Heilongjiang, Zhang (Liao) is a recently-divorced policeman, during a fresh case of a dismembered body scattered in sundry collieries where an I.D. card indicates the dead is Liang (Xuebing Wang), but due to his negligence, two fellow policemen are killed in operation while Zhang is also wounded. After that, the time jumps to 2004, now Zhang is a life-beaten drunkard and works as a security guard, two new dismembered bodies have been found, all link back to Liang's wife Wu (Gwei), whose mysterious mien attracts Zhang, he embarks on a personal investigation to follow her, strike up a conversation with her in the dry-cleaner where she works, and eventually ask her out for an ice-skating date. But at the same time, danger is lurking around him too, is Liang really dead? Or is Wu as innocent as she looks? Can all the mysteries be brought into daylight in the end or is there another lie involved? Diao smugly leaves an semi-opening end with many spurious clues (e.g. the cremains Wu buried under the tree Vs. her apparent lie of discarding it over the sea during the inquiry), to prompt viewers for disparate interpretations.
This film is to a great extent inscribed as an art-house fare with its lurid background or foreground colour embedding in almost every scene, the visual palette is meticulously chosen and also overtly, Diao is a faithful apprentice of symbolism, from a battered ladybug on the bedsheets in the opening sequence, to an abrupt introduction of a deserted horse left by junkmen, until the firework finale reaches the hallmarks of its veiled fatalism pretentiousness buried in his not-so-justifiable script, there must be a more plausible reason behind a redemption by right of admitting a murder one might not execute, it unfortunately gives an impression of a desperate trick to glaze over the banality of the story, to romanticize the damsel-in-distress reverie.
The whole story is a dancing-on-the-edge between a sex-driven anti-hero and a irresolute femme fatale, with a jarring red herring which leads to nowhere. But the two leads are giving fantastic performances, Fan Liao breathes out the irascible mentality stinkingly inflicted on a non-starter who clings to the last straw and strives to feel the ardor of living again. While Lun Mei Gwei from Taiwan, may seem to be an odd choice for a North-east girl, heedfully, she doesn't have many lines to give away her southern accent, instead, relies on her body language and facial expressions, her air of mystique is the most enticing feature entraps audience even in the film's banalest moment.
Winning over the likes of BOYHOOD (2014, 8/10) and THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014, 8/10) in Berlin inevitably becomes an over-achievement for this intense crime-thriller, but put it among its Chinese peers of the same year, the film can excel most of them hands down, as one of the must-see from the over-ballooning market where ingrainedly burdened with shoddy soil damages its own commodities.