MANG JING

Hong Kong/China, 2003, 92 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Li Yang.

The director of Mang Jing (Blind Shaft) was a documentary film-maker. This is evident as he portrays the coalmines of central China: the rugged and dry terrain, the mines themselves, the lodgings for the miners, the nearby town. However, this militates somewhat against his dramatic skills. While the film focuses on two veteran miners who have a scheme to set up an anonymous young man, pass him off as a friend or relative, murder him in the mines and then make it look like an accident and claim money from the owners who do not want their under-standard mines investigated, the film should have had more dramatic punch. They focus on a young boy, sixteen years old, whose father has died in the mines and who has to support his family, even though he is studying to go to school. One of the schemers, however, gradually befriends the young man, almost acting as a father figure. When the climax comes, it is somewhat unexpected but is not treated with the dramatic momentum that it might have had.

The film shows ordinary life in China, ordinary men, their greed, lack of scruple. It also shows the ordinary lives of the town, especially the work in the brothels that cater for the men of the town, especially the miners. It is a look at China as it might have been during the 20th century and continues into the 21st.

1. The impact of the film? Life in China? Its portrait of the miners, their work, friendships, schemes? The moral dilemmas of the film?

2. The location photography, the background of documentaries, the locations of the mines, in the mines, the town? The musical score?

3. The title and its implications for the victims in the mines? The irony at the end of the film for the two schemers?

4. The opening: the miners going to work, the regulations, searches, going down the shaft, the work itself, the break, the murder and the cover-up? The emergency and the investigation?

5. The two men, their characters, their scheme, their plans, their shrewdness? The discussions with the mine owner as if they were victims? His under-standard mines, his wanting to pay them off? The pay-off and the mutual satisfaction?

6. Their travel, finding the young man, telling them (him?) to be the nephew? The interview, signing up, the work, the lodgings?

7. The young man, his family background, age, lack of experience? His friendship with the two men, agreeing to their plan? His work, the washtub and the ribald conversations? In the room, his fascination with the pin-ups? The meals, the discussions? Going to the town, their setting him up for the massage, his shyness, embarrassment, his reaction afterwards? His going again into the town with them? His reading, studying? Writing home and the men tearing up his letter? His wanting to send the money to his family, paying back his debts, giving to the boy in the street, begging for money for school (and the men following the example)?

8. The build-up to the execution of the plan, the callous member, his wanting to kill the boy? Uncle and his change of heart, saving the boy, delaying the plan? Friendship? The bashing of each other, the boy running and leaving the two men in the mine, the emergency?

9. The aftermath, did he realise what had happened? His going to the cremation - and the final glimpse of the smoke coming out of the chimney?

10. Particularly Chinese issues and style? Universal themes of dishonesty and exploitation, of friendship and father-figure friendship?