Too bad this good attempt to make a thriller is failing...
The story is about two guys working in mines, and having a very special way to make money: they take a young and naive guy coming from the country to find a job, tell him he can never make it without help, and persuade him to make everybody believe he is one of the guys brother, so that he can be hired in the same mine as they were. The guy falls in the trap, and after a few weeks he has a little "accident" so that the so-called brother (and his accomplice) can have money from the boss, promising not to denounce the terrible working conditions of the mine to the police. One day, as they find a new victim, one of the two criminals starts to feel bad about all this, especially since he is starting to have some kind of fraternal feelings for their future victim.
Reading the plot of this movie at the Deauville Asian Film festival, i was very enthusiastic since it seemed to be a thriller, which is a genre we are not used to see in Mainland China. Chinese movies having a very different "taste" from Hong Kong one, i was expecting a very interesting mix between the Chinese way and entertaining plot.
As "Blind Shaft" is starting, the first thing we understand is that it is going to be the same old kind Chinese movie, balancing between fiction and documentary, showing everyday-life scenes between others developping the story. Being used to see this kind of movie, i was not discouraged at the beginning. However, later on, a question started to pop-up in my mind: what kind of movie is it supposed to be? what do they want to do with this story? On one hand we have a pretty cynical story, with from times to times a few funny and ironical quotes, as well as a few funny situations laughing at the young guy's naivety, and it seems that the logical development is coming to a growing tension between the two main characters. On the other hand, we have a documentary which is obviously meant to attact a certain kind of Western audience, people who are thirsty of knowledge about everyday-life in China, how they work, where they live, where they sleep, what they eat, how they talk, and so on. I don't mean to criticize this kind of movie, everybody who is interested in China can find an interest in everyday-life scenes. But the problem is that the association between this and the genre it is supposed to belong to when we read the synopsis is not very convincing: every cynical quote, every attempt to make psychological tension or emotion grow is failing. The documentary-like way of filming (and the movie is actually well directed in this way) is killing every attempt to make it being a thriller, and the result is that we finally do not find any interest in the plot anymore: instead of taking part in the story, intead of focusing on the characters, we just watch them, and do not feel anything for them.
This movie had a good idea in the beginning, and i like the intention to make something different in an industry where there is a big lack of diversity in terms of plot or themes. It could also have been interesting to see a thriller-like plot, a genre for which the American have imposed a certain way of developping the story, made very differently from what we are used to. But despite of its good directing and many other good points, its impact was probably killed by being blocked by the heavy standard of the industry, and the kind of audience (chinese or international) it is targetting.
