Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

CountZero313 Jinming and Zhaoyang travel around illegal mines with marginalised, friendless individuals, people who won't be missed, killing them underground and faking a mine collapse, so they can collect the compensation. The scam works well till their youngest ever recruit, fresh-faced Yuan, starts to grow on his 'uncle' Jinming, leading Zgaoyang to make a fateful decision.Yang Li fashions a gritty, realistic tale from naturalistic performance and uncompromising locations. Life in the mines seems so severe, so sapping, that there is a tinge of release around the untimely deaths of the victims. The camaraderie and ephemeral nature of life as an itinerant worker is shown in all its banal and brutal detail. Families exist at the end of a phone line. The banter crackles with humour. Women are bought and paid for. Drink, cigarettes and gambling fill out the days. Bosses are amoral misanthropes.This picture certainly jars with the 'new China' currently feted in Sunday glossies and in-flight magazines. Strong plot, and with a social conscience, this is an interesting fusion of social realism and plot-driven film-making. Highly recommended.

Howard Schumann Although many disasters go unreported by mine operators afraid of prosecution, annual deaths in China's coalmines are thought to exceed 10,000. Only last week, 166 miners were killed in a fire in the Chenjiashan Coal Mine in China's Shaanxi Province, a disaster that came shortly after an earlier explosion in Central China in which 148 miners were killed. Local media reports suggest negligence and greed as the causes of the deadly fire at the Chenjiashan mine, specifically by management's pursuit of a year-end bonus for extra-production while failing to take the time to properly ventilate a shaft. Blind Shaft, the savagely humorous first feature by Li Yang, dramatizes conditions in China's mines, making a direct attack on China's headlong dash to capitalism where greed seems more important than human life. Banned in China, the film combines gritty realism with uncompromising social commentary.Adapted from a novel by Liu Qingbang, itinerant coalminers Song Jinming (Li Yixiang) and Tang Zhaoyang (Wang Shuangbao) devise a scheme to extort money from corrupt mine owners by convincing a fellow worker to pose as their relative. When they kill him and fake an industrial accident, they collect the compensation owed to a relative from the more than willing owner, eager to prevent an investigation into his mine's deteriorating condition. Tang is older and more cynical. Song still has plans to live a good life that includes schooling for his teenage son and both dutifully send part of their blood money home to their family, justifying their criminal behavior by saying "China has a shortage of everything except people".Short of money, Tang recruits a naïve sixteen-year old boy, Yuan Fengming (Wang Baoqiang), whom he spots queuing for work in a city square but their carefully laid out plans begin to show cracks. The boy reminds Song of his own son and he develops protective feelings for him. Yuan, whose father may have been killed by the same scam artists, is anxious to find any kind of work to earn enough money to enroll in school and attaches himself to Song who pretends that he is his uncle. The boy, though a runaway out on his own, does not have any street smarts and his innocence is a sharp contrast to the wily scam operators. In his spare time, he reads History textbooks because they are "interesting" and spends his wages (after wiring some home) to buy the two conspirators a chicken, completely unsuspecting what their intentions are.When the two find work in a nearby mine, Tang is eager to get on with the business, but Song keeps putting things off. The two plan to murder the boy but first want to make his last days a bit pleasurable, introducing him to wine, women and song. In a revealing scene at a bar, Song offers to sing a song called "Long live socialism", but he is reminded that the words have now been changed to "The reactionaries were never overcome. They came back with their US dollars, liberating China". Suspense increases until the film turns in an unexpected but deeply rewarding direction. Blind Shaft won the Silver Bear at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival and has received almost unanimous critical praise in the West. It is one of the best films I've seen this year.

Karl Ericsson We do not know how all the wealth was built up in our western past. This film offers an explanation to how, at least some of it, can be achieved. SPOILERS!!!!! Hard-working workers, with kids who need education for which money is needed, embrace the world of competition and take it a little step further. Since nobody can be loved but your next of kin in a world of competition, it is only logical that some will draw the full conclusion of this and do what their soul-brothers in ancient times (be it the Borgias of renaessance Venice or the oil-barons of Texas) have done in order to achieve in a month, what otherwise would take more than a year to achieve in income. Matter-of-factly and as 'normal' as anything going on, two workers in the mining-business have found a way of extracting money from murders, which are not investigated for reasons this film explains. They have touched on the very heart of competition. In other words: An aggressive and competent attack on competition-society. Impressive. 10 out of 10.

Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) A bold feature from writer-director Li Yang (also producer, film editor and focus puller) who is not afraid to expose the every man for himself corruption and swindling situations of China's mining workers conditions. Seems like a sad story yet its plot progression is as taut a thriller and chilling as its straightforward dauntless depiction of the ugly, the callous and the innocent. Amorality and moral strength is at play here - call it political concerns. There is no shyness to the telling of the story like it is. There is no fear that this film may not be for everyone (NFE) and that doses of entertainment/merriment may not be enough for Hollywood standard. This is a very good film in spite of all the odds. Script was written with dramatic turns akin to basics of human nature, be it circumstantial greed, abandoned pleasure, filial attachment, or unabashed dreams. Lots of respect for all involved in the production of this film - not an easy one at that. Going deep down into the mines and photographing in utter pitch darkness is one tough challenge. Applause to the actors, the crew, all the assistance in the realization of this no ordinary film effort, of a seemingly ordinary life of coal mine workers, family members, and the management. This film has such strength and poignancy that it felt like the result of a veteran filmmaker rather than a debut effort. Past films with coal mine workers theme: John Sayles' "Matewan" (1987) with Chris Cooper and co.; Richard Harris in Martin Ritt's "The Molly Maguires" (1970); a more modern day story with Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor in Mark Herman's "Brassed Off" (1996). Li Yang's "Blind Shaft" aka "Mang Jing" is by far an every-man account of how dark the situation can be, or is. The film is in Mandarin with well-translated English subtitles by Jonathan Noble. The fascinating study of human nature is fully embraced in the storytelling and the convincing performances of the three central characters: Qiang Li and Shuangbao Wang as the ugly and callous pair of Song and Tang, and Baoqiang Wang as the innocent teenage boy Yuan. It is a worthwhile 92 mins. Thanks to Kino International for distributing this rare film, jointly produced by China, Germany and Hong Kong. Other distributed foreign gems: w-d Im Kwon-Taek's "Chihwaseon" aka "Painted Fire" (Korean 2002); w-d Jeong Jae-eun's "Take Care of My Cat" (Korean 2001); w-d Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown" (French 2000, with Juliette Binoche); w-d Wong Kar-Wai's "Happy Together" (Cantonese 1997); w-d Julie Dash's "Daughters of the Dust" (1991).