London Film Festival Review: Black Coal, Thin Ice
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★★☆☆☆
Chinese director Yi'nan Diao’s Black Coal, Thin Ice is a strangely opaque and more than a little tiresome crime story and would-be thriller. It contains long, grim, protracted scenes, frequently with unfathomable narrative purpose, and also flashes of brutal violence. The type of grisly and disturbing viciousness on display here used to be called ‘Asia-extreme’ but such a label would feel racist by omission since these days multiplex American fodder features graphic scenes of heads being caved in and limbs being blown off, so why should we single it out for being ‘Asian’?
To be fair, this is less extreme than some other violent content from that part of the world, but it still contains scenes that may be better watched through your fingers. A particularly grisly opening features severed limbs being found in a coal-treatment plant. What follows is a convoluted, involved and sprawling whodunit, with a dash of social commentary thrown in. Some scenes are moderately intriguing (including an extended sequence set around an ice skating rink) whereas others just make you check your watch (such as an extended sequence involve sex on a Ferris wheel). Everything’s quite extended, good and bad.
The plot is difficult to summarise, but it concerns two detectives who were brought low from a curious previous case that flummoxed them and their community. Now, the appearance of limbs at the aforementioned plant catches their attention and they are drawn into a dark and cruel world, one that offers many horrors: social, economical and criminal.
Chinese director Yi'nan Diao’s Black Coal, Thin Ice is a strangely opaque and more than a little tiresome crime story and would-be thriller. It contains long, grim, protracted scenes, frequently with unfathomable narrative purpose, and also flashes of brutal violence. The type of grisly and disturbing viciousness on display here used to be called ‘Asia-extreme’ but such a label would feel racist by omission since these days multiplex American fodder features graphic scenes of heads being caved in and limbs being blown off, so why should we single it out for being ‘Asian’?
To be fair, this is less extreme than some other violent content from that part of the world, but it still contains scenes that may be better watched through your fingers. A particularly grisly opening features severed limbs being found in a coal-treatment plant. What follows is a convoluted, involved and sprawling whodunit, with a dash of social commentary thrown in. Some scenes are moderately intriguing (including an extended sequence set around an ice skating rink) whereas others just make you check your watch (such as an extended sequence involve sex on a Ferris wheel). Everything’s quite extended, good and bad.
The plot is difficult to summarise, but it concerns two detectives who were brought low from a curious previous case that flummoxed them and their community. Now, the appearance of limbs at the aforementioned plant catches their attention and they are drawn into a dark and cruel world, one that offers many horrors: social, economical and criminal.
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