BLIND SHAFT
(three stars)
Strikes a rich lode.
Running time: 92 minutes. Not rated (sex, violence). At the Film Forum, West Houston and Varick streets.
‘BLIND Shaft,” a Chinese film that won top prizes at the Berlin and TriBeCa film festivals, has variously been described as a thriller, a muckraking exposé and even a satire – and its refusal to fit neatly into a genre is only part of why it’s so utterly disturbing.
The premise can be taken as a black comedy bordering on the ghoulish. At the outset, we see a pair of miners, the younger Tang (Wang Shuangbao) and the somewhat older Song (Li Yixiang), beat a fellow miner to death and fake a cave-in.
These two clever grifters know the mine’s young manager would do almost anything to avoid an official inquiry, so these rogues pretend the victim is a relative.
Negotiating like experts, they extort a large sum of cash from the manager in return for signing a document exonerating the mine from responsibility in the death.
Soon, Tang and Song have found a new victim in China’s rough Northern provinces – Yuan (Wang Baogiang), a fresh-faced 16-year-old they pass off as Song’s nephew when they all go to work at another mine.
The intent is to pull off the same scam, but the grifters accidentally begin developing a genuine relationship with their adoring victim, and they help him lose his virginity virtually on the eve of his planned death.
It would be a crime to give away the deliciously dark ending, except to mention that Song develops particular pangs of conscience about Yuan, who is the same age as the son Song hasn’t seen in years.
The low-key and gritty “Blind Shaft,” which was made covertly by the German-trained Li Yang, is a stunning indictment of China’s economic miracle and announces the arrival of a director to watch.