Popular reviews

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  Review by Vadim Rizov ★★★ 2

  Most of what I've read about Black Coal, Thin Ice consists of "meh" reactions; people seem fairly irritable about it beating out Boyhood for top prize at Berlin, which really isn't a reasoned reaction that'll make sense historically. Because the business and criticism sides of film writing rarely talk to each other, I didn't realize until after seeing it that Black Coal, Thin Ice represents a potential seismic shift in Chinese cinema (it certainly doesn't play that ambitiously). Dinan is bullish on merging arthouse technique (that sounds reductive, but it's his terminology pretty much) with mainstream genre plotting to attract more audiences; the film exceeded modest commercial expectations and is the year's 17th-highest grosser at home. The director believes censorship…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½ 3

  Diao Yinan’s startlingly bleak new film, as well-directed a noir as any this side of Chinatown, begins with a sequence in which a man’s severed arm makes its way from the back of a truck to the black river of a conveyer belt in a coal factory in northern China. When an attentive worker finally spots the errant limb, the machinery is shut down just before any damage can be done to the equipment or the company that owns it. In Black Coal, Thin Ice, men are practically invisible until they interfere with business, and women completely so until they interfere with men.

  READ THE FULL REVIEW ON LITTLE WHITE LIES

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  Review by YI JIAN ★★★★ 1

  Black Coal, Thin Ice (Actual translation is "Daylight Fireworks". Nevertheless, both are equally good names.) is a film so so so so so so so so beautifully shot, but suffers from a poor pace. At times I find it hard to follow the plot, part of the reason is because of the pacing, but mostly because I often got lost in the breathtaking cinematography. I had to replay a lot of scenes just to admire them again. I mean, look at that poster for christ's sake, what a work of art!

  (edit: aw they changed it.)

  Before going into Black Coal, I thought it would be a film similar to Joon-Bong Ho's Memories of Murder, turns out it's completely different.…

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  Review by nick ★★★★½ 6

  Black Coal, Thin Ice is as chilly as it's romantic, just like its snowy Northern Chinese town setting, where crimes and secrets run amok, while the light of love and mercy shines as bright as daytime fireworks.

  Chinese cinema is known its arthouse crime sagas, and Black Coal, Thin Ice is yet another noir masterpiece of that genre, a surprising Golden Bear winner at the Berlin Film Festival, which is well deserved in my opinion. It starts with body parts being found in a factory, which leads to an intensive yet emotionally charged journey of puzzle solving procedures and personal ordeals for multiple characters. It's mesmerizing in its uniquely Chinese-based cinematography, which manages to locate the most visually striking angles…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  this has the same specters of capital and loneliness i find in a lot of classic American noir, and is equally populated with characters and places left behind by a culture that insists on moving forward just as fervently as those abandoned wish they could stay in the past.

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  Review by Branson Reese

  Sometimes you watch a film set in the Heilongjiang Province in 2004 and your big takeaway is that you really miss Pittsburgh in 2006. It just happens like that sometimes. Cinema is so powerful.

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 5

  This movie has been on my Rec list for a few months already after reading Nick's review of it – and I am glad to say that it largely lives up to my expectations after reading the review.

  This is another great take on crime cinema that opts to forgo the thrills in favor of an approach that soothes you into the minds of the characters, with lingering camerawork that builds either the sense of near-certain disaster or the uncertainty of sheer awkwardness. We also get to explore the psychological aspects, as well as enjoy the amazing cinematography. A great balance of wide spaces and close-ups is achieved by the camera, delivering plenty of beauty in the process.

  Performances are…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 1

  like a chinese MEMORIES OF A MURDER with an oblique focus on gender... what a dense, magnificently directed piece of work. so eager to revisit and solve this thing.

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  Review by Chris ★★★½ 2

  Bleak realism meets unsettling evocation, a textbook noir narrative about a wayward former cop drawn back to a murder case by an enigmatic woman where every element is underplayed so that you're just left to absorb the bitterly chilly atmosphere. It's a stark look at two emotionally drained people who are perpetually haunted by a past incident and the weirdly aloof relationship they initiate, often placing the central mystery aside to focus on the uncomfortable economic and social circumstances surrounding them. Diao Yinan's measured direction, which makes heavy use of long takes and wide shots, helps heighten the naturalisitc style along with the suitably understated lead performances. The cinematography is fantastic too, the contrast it draws in the shabby town…

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  Review by Tao A ★★★★ 13

  Jia Zhangke does Memories of Murder is about the best way I could describe this film. Bleak with a capital B and about as Chinese as it gets. Well-executed camerawork and neon lighting doesn't exactly hurt, either.

  Only complaint I had was the same problem I have with a lot of other films, the ending dragged on a bit. It would've been a perfect 10/10 for me if they had only ended it 5 minutes prior during a certain very memorable scene, instead of bullshit. But that's just my retarded ass talking.

  p.s. Gwei Lun-mei, the lead actress, was almost distractingly beautiful to a point where I was completely taken out of the film every time she showed up on…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado

  A terrific genre mystery whose only fault was winning a big festival (which is a weird thing because it is actually one of the better Golden Bear winners of the past 20 years). Some of the artier touches fall flat (including the symbolic final scene) but Diao has a great and often blunt eye and feel for place and he milks the genre tropes to strengthen his thematic weight in often interest and unexpect ways.

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  Review by Thomas Ringdal ★★★★ 3

  A detective refuses to let go of a case, long after it's become cold, to the extent he is forced to leave his job to get his final chance to uncover the truth about what happened when several dismembered bodies were found in coal plants around the country five years ago.

  At times, Black Coal is a bit incoherent, and some events that seemed pretty major to me are left unexplored further. Takes a que from Korean cinema and adds some brilliant moments of comedy in an otherwise pretty bleak story, as well as some oddities that seem more at home in a Hal Hartley (or Claire Denis if you will, yes I'm referring to dancing) film than a Chinese…