Kaili Blues

Bi Gan's directing debut Kaili Blues (2015) is pretty impressive. The film belong to the slow school of film making and is long on mood and short on exposition. It follows the lives of people in a small community in Kaili, a province in south China not far from SE Asia. The principal story concerns Chen (Chen Yongzhong), a former convict who works as a doctor and goes on a search his nephew, Wei wei-whom he fears will be sold into slavery by his gambling addicted half brother know as Crazy Face. This allows the director to document Kaili as it is now-for ti is sure to change in the modern surging  economy of China-in this sense it reminds me of the early films of Jia Zhenghke, who also was documenting the changes in his home province of Shanxi. One of the highlights in the film is a 40 minute no-cut, wide angle traveling shot on a moped in the middle of the film is a legend in the making – it is an impressive and cinematic sequence. I look forward to see what his next film looks like.