U.S. Premiere!

Director Jia Zhangke and star Zhao Tao in person for Q&A at both screenings!

Jia Zhangke’s bloody, bitter film finds the great Chinese filmmaker entering new genre territory, but retaining his commitment to the marginalized and oppressed—this time by way of four overlapping parallel stories, each inspired by real-life acts of violence. A miner (Jiang Wu) struggles with corrupt village leaders. A migrant worker (Wang Baoqiang), returning home, gets his hands on a firearm. A sauna hostess (Jia’s wife and muse, Zhao Tao) endures a series of humiliations over the course of an affair with a married man. A young man (Luo Lanshan) moves to a new town only to find himself trading one thankless, demoralizing job for another. The cumulative portrait, filled with despair and rage, is of a modern-day China undergoing rapid, convulsive changes and creeping cultural amnesia. A Kino Lorber release.