Blind Shaft
Director: Li Yang
Genre: Thriller, World cinema, Crime Fiction, Drama, Crime Thriller, Crime Drama, Chinese Movies
Year: 2003
Country: Hong Kong, China, Germany
Language: Standard Mandarin
Starring: Qiang Li, Shuangbao Wang, Wang Baoqiang, Jing Ai, Yining Wang, Jun Zhao, Zhenjiang Bao, Sun Wei, Liu Zhenqi, Zhang Lulu, Zhao Hong
Blind Shaft (Chinese: 盲井; pinyin: Mángjǐng) is a 2003 film about a pair of brutal con artists operating in the illegal coal mines of present-day northern China. The film was written and directed by Li Yang (李杨), and is based on Chinese writer Liu Qingbang's short novel Shen Mu (Sacred Wood).
Most of the filming took place 700 meters underground on the border between the Hebei and Shanxi provinces of northern China. Li and his crew were harassed and threatened during the filming.
Blind Shaft has won at least twelve awards, including the "Silver Bear" award at 2003 Berlin International Film Festival.
Blind Shaft has not been approved for release in China. The Economist noted how "directors are eager to comment on the rapid changes in Chinese society. But films such as Li Yang's Blind Shaft (a bleak, compelling picture about life in China's illegal coal mines)... were not shown to local audiences even though they had been acclaimed abroad."
The director has stated that although he is not sure exactly why the film was banned in China, he believes the film's content has "no political stigma" attached to it, noting that the novel received China's highest literary award, the Lao She
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Internet Movie Database