By Daniel Nelson

Scandinavian crime dramas step aside: let the Chinese police procedural take over.

Black Coal, Thin Ice

Black Coal, Thin Ice

Image by Black Coal, Thin Ice

Black Coal, Thin Ice takes its title from the deliciously gruesome opening when body parts start appearing in coal plants, and from the dangers faced several years later by the rough and ready, hard-drinking, mournful cop-turned-security guard in unravelling the case.

It’s a complex tale, superbly and quirkily told by writer-director Diao Yinan, with deft touches of humour and surrealism – and there’s nothing more surrealistic than the bizarre finale.

It gives a bleak, neon-lit picture of small-town China, including its seediness and sexism (which includes former detective  Zhang  Zili), and it’s utterly absorbing.

The serpentine plot unfolds through false trails and will leave some viewers bemused. But its style and mystery and sheer strangeness carry you forward, with the help of a handful of arrestingly odd scenes – among them, Zhang’s absurd railway platform tussle with his departing wife, and one of cinema’s messiest police shoot-outs.

The love – or possibly sex – interest comes from Wu Zhizhen,  the widow of the main suspect in the original investigation. She, too, adds to the film’s idiosyncrasies: she’s more mousey than femme fatale.

Everything is suffused with an unusual unreal air and the film, though it was approved for general release in China, won’t do much for tourism in the country’s north-east, but it’s a unique and worthy contribution to film noir.

·  Black Coal, Thin Ice is showing on 9 and 11 October (midday and 8.30pm respectively) at the Vue West End  and on 12 October (1pm) at the Vue Islington, as opart of the London Film Festival

An Arab Western hits the trail - on camels

The thrilling, serpentine story of Pengpeng's abduction

* Developing countries at the London Film Festival

+ National Diploma passes with distinction

+ Somali fishers of men

+ 'I am a living contradiction - a white African'

Karakoram road movie

+ A beautifully observed Timbuktu story

blog comments powered by Disqus