User reviews

An ex-detective re-investigates a strange unsolved murder case that effectively ended his career five years previously. In doing so he ends up becoming increasingly involved with a young woman who seems to be connected with a series of similar killings.

It was good to see an example of a Chinese neo-noir. My previous experience with films from China has been usually of movies of epic proportions with big production values. So it made for a refreshing change to see something more low-key and contemporary. This one sets out its stall very well with the sinister discovery of various body parts being found in bags of coal spread all over the country, huge distances apart. The introduction of a femme fatale into the mix only ups the intrigue level further. And I have to say that on the whole I did enjoy this film and found it compelling, with its Chinese origins ensuring that it was a little different and punctuated with unpredictable moments. By the end of the piece it would be only fair to say that some questions still remain. I thought the ending was really very strange indeed with an odd final few moments and an ambiguous feeling. It almost feels like a superfluous ending but maybe I missed something in it. In truth odd things happen on a number of occasions throughout this one and reasons are not always very forthcoming, I am guessing this is a film that would benefit from a re-watch possibly. Also good was the wintry atmosphere of the snowy locales where the action unfolds that created a feeling all of its own which worked well. But I would probably have to conclude that, while I definitely liked this one, it does falls short of being great. It's not really that suspenseful for this type of film and the plot development doesn't ultimately reveal all that good a mystery in the final analysis. Certainly a good enough movie I have to emphasise but it just has a few hard to ignore unsatisfying flaws as well though.

The plot is that two cops who have had their careers ruined, by a case that went horribly wrong, decide to reunite. This they do after a murder that has striking similarities to the one that floored them happens again.

Zhang Zili has lost everything, his wife, the job he loved and has turned to the bottle as he goes through the motions as an underpaid security guard. Then he gets the chance to solve the case that is his nemesis. This is not a police procedural though; this has elements of the heart, base existentialism and even dark humour.

This is from director and writer Yi'nan Diao who brought us 'Night Train' and 'Uniform'. He comes from a very industrialised part of China and this is generally reflected in his films - and indeed it is here. Also the loneliness that comes from the isolating capacity of industrialised living. This though is a confident and assured piece of film making. Even when I thought a scene or two had stayed going a tad too long, he just reveals why and all of a sudden you are right back on track. In Mandarin and running to around 100 minutes this will appeal to those who appreciate modern Chinese cinema and who like a bit of dark brooding to their crime thrillers.

How does a Chinese director empty the noir sensibility of any and all of the glamour associated with its Hollywood counterpart? How does it become a study in pure dourness and grimness? If you're Yi'nan Diao, the first thing you do is set it in a place as grim and dour as a northern Chinese factory town circa 1999. In this frozen wasteland that may or may not be Harbin – it doesn't matter, it could be Siberia – the ball gets rolling when dead body parts start showing up on the conveyor belt of a coal processing plant: after all, in this time and space in China, the human body is just another physical commodity…

Following a bloody shootout that leaves the two main suspects and two of his partners dead, we jump forward five years to find the surviving detective, Zhang Zili, paralyzed by the trauma, retired from the police force and passed out in the snow in an alcoholic stupor. But things are never what they seem in noir, right? So he's dragged back into the case when a former partner of his suspects the involvement of a black widow- like female at the heart of the matter. An exotic call girl? A mysterious nightclub singer? No – just some depressed woman who works at a dry cleaner's where she's regularly mauled by her piggish oaf of a boss.

The plot is unimportant, really, because the film is one big painting, a night-time world where the neon signs of the internet gambling dens and bleak taxi-dancing joints are beaten into submission by the cold dark chill of northern China, where all color and light are sucked into the film's essence, which is nothing but a black hole, a gravitational death machine that swallows up every photon in sight. At one point, while spinning around the world's most depressing ice skating rink, Zili asks his former partner, "Does anybody ever really win at life?" Of course not. Like all the other catatonic ice skaters, he's just going round and round, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind (depending on one's point of view…) getting nowhere while people continue to copulate and kill and die. The key to the film is the direct translation of the Chinese title, which means "daytime fireworks." I'll let you figure that out for yourself, but if you like your noir pitch-black, this one's for you.

A Chinese crime drama with a good storyline and convincing acting. Low key style with a mix of random everyday events and a police investigation. Filmed in a realist style with some surreal moments.

A series of murders, whose hallmarks are numerous body parts being found around the Province, perplex detectives and leave them with a failed investigation. A former member of the force, sacked for incompetence, takes the initiative and follows a lead.

Slow paced but gripping. We are given insights into the characters' lives, motivations and idiosyncrasies alongside their roles in the unfolding world of the murder investigation. What it lacks in action is made up for in a range of intriguing characters and quirky events.

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.

It seems that, every few years, there are one or two Chinese films that, despite being slow-paced, dark, and lacking A-list stars, somehow manage to attract a large domestic audience without being controversial enough to risk complete censorship. In 2014, the only example I have seen so far is this, Black Coal, Thin Ice. The reason for its domestic success is presumably because of its awards at the Berlin Film Festival.

As the story unfolds, despite being based around a series of murders, the film has a pace more similar to an art-house film than a crime- thriller. A couple of scenes were impressively disturbing, made even more so by the slow paced, subtle atmosphere surrounding them.

The setting of a polluted, dark, seedy city in a long Heilongjiang winter seems perfect for the noir tone of the film. A subtle musical score, with some dissonant strings combined with (terrible) Chinese pop songs (intra-diegetic) creates a fantastic atmosphere. The closest thing to it I have seen is Suzhou River, which, now I come to think of it, has a lot of similar motifs (I haven't seen Diao Yinan's previous films).

The acting performances were all impressive, the female lead (played by Taiwanese Gwei/Gui Lun-Mei) seemed suitably out of place in the Far Northeast of Mainland China. Liao Fan's male lead, and Wang Xuebing's character, were both impressive.

Despite a bit of dark humour that made me giggle, Black Coal, Thin Ice is a relentlessly grim and slightly disturbing film. I was impressed that it wasn't (more) censored in China, as it paints a pretty depressing picture. Despite being enthralled by the film, I won't be booking a flight to Heilongjiang any time soon.

In snow covered streets surrounded by perpetual darkness detectives and suspects are made distinguishable only by the soft glow of neon signs. Faces are shrouded by shadow, characters motives are unclear. We are in very classic noir territory in Black Coal, Thin Ice.

A brutal murder occurs in Northern China. Severed limbs appear simultaneously across the country in coal plants. The investigation into the murder is botched, leaving detective Zhang Zili injured, ashamed and without a job. Five years later, body parts are found in coal plants. Now an alcoholic and working as a security guard, Zhang once again finds himself in the pursuit of the mysterious mass murderer. The only connection between the two cases is a beautiful dry cleaning assistant Wu Zhizhen, who soon becomes the object of Zhang's obsession.

An intriguing combination of neo-noir and Chinese realism, Black Coal, Thin Ice demonstrates director Yi'nan Diao's genre literacy. From the lighting, to the troubled anti-hero, to the femme-fatale, the film is full of noir tropes. What makes the film unique is the camera's continual shift to the mundane. Unlike the modern Tarantino-inspired trend, the revelations and acts of violence are down-played. Plot takes a back seat to atmosphere as the audience is immersed in a bleak, nihilistic vision of modern China.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival, Black Coal, Thin Ice has been a hit with critics but it's hard to see it winning any audience awards. The slow pace and dark, defeatist world view will be a turn off for most audience but if you don't view those as detractors, and if you are a fan of noir then this is a film to see.

Black Coal, Thin Ice is the kind of film that can only be felt, the charming point of the film is the indescribable feeling you get from the unique atmosphere. It's a suspense film with sort of Film-Noir feeling, but the plot of the case actually is not so important. As I said, what matters is the feeling. Those empty street shots, environment background sounds, strange acts and even some dark humor tastes. It even looks like a Jia Zhangke's film sometimes.(Well, Jia Zhangke's name did appear in the thank list in the end credits.) Such feeling reached the top in the ending of the pyrotechnical in daytime, it not only reflect the title (The Chinese title is Bai ri yan huo, which means The Daylight Pyrotechnix.) but also release the depressed emotion and atmosphere. (The Uncut Version has very strange but interesting dark humor style scenes in the ending, but they are cut out in the Censored Mainland China Theatrical Version.)

The atmosphere in the film is nearly perfect, however the romance relationship between two characters is not believable at all. The whole film is based on that relationship, but it didn't convince me. Without the reliable relationship, the rest of the film seems not make sense at all. So yeah, it's a rare and unique film in Chinese cinema, it is well did in many aspects, but I don't think it is qualified for Golden Berlin Bear.

My score: 7.5 for the Uncut Version, 7.3 for the Mainland China Censored Theatrical Version.

I'm a big fan of Asian cinema, and I'm always happy to sit back and watch a Chinese thriller. However, BLACK COAL, THIN ICE takes some sitting through, purely because of its pacing. This is one of the slowest-moving films I've ever seen, and it feels like it goes on forever. The plotting is straightforward detective/police procedural stuff, and feels stretched out to fill the running time.

This is a mood piece throughout, focusing on summoning up a chilly atmosphere rather than worrying about the intricacies of story. It's also a thematic film exploring some social themes in China: alienation, husband/wife relationships, adultery, abuse. The problem I have with it is that it just didn't wow me. Everyone else seems to love it, so perhaps I'm missing something.

The characters are thinly drawn but somehow likable despite this; it helps that the lead actors, Fan Liao and Lun Mei Gwei, are both very good and naturalistic in their roles. Some moments of quirky comedy are the best thing the film has to offer, but for the most part it's just about long, drawn-out and repetitive scenes with the odd jarring moment. Although I like the genre, I didn't enjoy this film, and was really waiting for it to end more than anything else.

There are definitely some impressive technical flourishes here. The lighting and the colors used are gorgeous, and really do highlight a lot of the film's atmosphere, which is the other good thing about it. It's able to achieve atmosphere in a rather surprising way, but it's just too bad hat that atmosphere is wasted and doesn't really highlight much. The acting is decent, but the story and the screenplay leave a lot to be desired. The characters just aren't developed all that well, and just are so, so dull. The film's sense of pacing and development are non- existent. I don't think this is anything worthwhile, although I'm sure many will like it just fine.

Haunted by an unsolved serial killer case in which dead body parts turned up in coal trucks across the country, a former detective attempts to place the pieces together when similar murders recur in this acclaimed Chinese crime drama. The film gets off to a solid start with creepy shots of the dead body parts amidst all the coal as well as an eerie factory where everyone is a suspect. Fan Liao (Berlin Best Actor winner) is solid as the detective in question, however, the film loses much of its edge as it flashes forward five years to the unsolved murders recurring. There is a lot to like in how compelled the former detective feels to solve the case, and the killer's motives when revealed leave food for thought, however, his investigation is dragged out to the point that any suspense, tension or urgency soon dissipates. Cast as an alluring dry cleaner connected to the murders, Lun Mei Gwei gives the second half of a film a significant boost in a turn that has been compared to Ellen Barkin in 'Sea of Love' as our protagonist wrestles with romancing her but also suspecting her. She is not quite enough though to render the final part of the film anywhere near as impressive as its opening. The abrupt ending is also one of the most baffling of any film in recent times. Fortunately, the killer's confession and motives manage to linger vividly in one's mind long afterwards; suffice is to say, the revelation of the killer is bittersweet in the best possible way. With its deathly slow pacing, one's mileage here is likely to vary, but the story certain leaves an impact.

The plot design is good, and the plot development rhythm is controlled. Actors also use their acting skills to show the repression and struggle buried in their hearts.

A deadbeat cop, a mysterious and beautiful woman, a string of unresolved murders... All the ingredients for an interesting Chinese take on noir cinema. I really enjoyed the moody atmosphere (it takes place in northeast China in the winter, and makes great use of the environment) and the creative flashes of cinematography and direction (a shot of a woman screaming or of a man losing a bet, a quirky dancing scene), which were delightful and caught you by surprise.

This is a little known film (awarded at Berlinale), but well worth watching if you're lucky enough to find it on TV. It focuses on the efforts of the detective but this is one of those rare films which give you the impression after viewing it that you have truly lived and shared the lives of its characters. Highly recommended!

A former police officer tries to find out the identity of a serial killer from his time of investigation. A good chinese film, especially in terms of photography, with very interesting plans, from a colder (literally) and less fanciful part of the country. The narrative has a very classic noir and melodramatic mood, which helps to involve with what's going on on the screen. It starts out with a slow pace, but quickly becomes captivating when the second act begins. A story full of intrigue, secrets, and an atmosphere of suspicion almost to the end. One of those films where it's hard to tell who's the hero and the villain.

This film noir detective story with fantasy elements takes place in China's northernmost corner, Heilongjiang province, in a nondescript industrial city where the grip of winter gets colder and colder as the story progresses. You will need to pay attention, as the plot is not explained verbally and you have to notice a lot of visual cues. The characters do not talk much really, and when they do utter a sentence or two, it has nothing to do with the plot. You could almost think that the director would be Jim Jarmusch but he's not obviously. Diao Yinan has seen an Aki Kaurismäki film or two, one can tell, and it is no wonder that the film was well received by the Berlin festival crowd. It is not the kind of film Chinese audiences would love, though. This does not make BCTI any worse as a film. It has a dark and twisted, sometimes silly sense of humour. Once you get the hang of it, the plot is easy to follow yet intriguing. Who dun-it - most viewers will not have a clue but neither does the police! The People's Republic does not send it's finest this far out in the north. They also have very little to work with to be honest. Detective Zhang who is obsessed with the case has been sacked from the force for very obvious reasons including serious drinking. In addition he can't skate and he's in Heilongjiang, which you will notice is not a good thing. The film wrings a lot of atmosphere from the utterly unpleasant surroundings. Excellent actors add to it. If you enjoyed the Coen brothers' Fargo I can see no reason why you wouldn't enjoy Black Coal, Thin Ice. In the final scene, the original Chinese name of the film, Fireworks in Daylight, will be explained - sort of.

OK, so yes - this is a very slow burn a times with far too many establishing and shots of decaying urban industrialisation, but when the action does actually focus on the story it's not a bad crime drama at all. We start with an arm sticking out of a pile of coal. The cops arrive and "Zhang" (Fan Liao) is soon on the case. He can only identify the corpse, though, and unimpressed his bosses ensure that five years down the line he is reduced to working as a security guard with a penchant for the bottle too. What we now know, though, is that there were a series of such killings and they are now under his fingernails. He is obsessed with identifying the killer. Reuniting with his for partner "Liang" (Xuebing Wang), they pick up a trail that leads them to the enigmatic "Wu Zhizhen" (Gwei Lun-Mei). "Zhang" now vacillates between an attraction to this woman and to suspecting her, but has she anything to do with the crimes? It's a curiously developed film, this. It proceeds in fits and starts before a denouement that is rushed and rather unfulfilling. It looks gritty and dark, the weather - cold and miserable, also helps to create an atmosphere and the acting is competent. Maybe it could lose twenty minutes of preambling characterisations, but it has a solid story with director Yi'nan Diao getting close to the the best from Fan Liao and his lumps of coal.

Bad acting and terrible ending.

Its a very bad movie that doesn't have anything.

I think at first it likes a comedy movie .