Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

With its complex (and, at times, deeply problematic) intersection of an educated outsider with the stubborn realities of rural life, Blind Mountain explicitly harkens back to those classic works from the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, like Yellow

| Aug 8, 2009

Effective at showing how hard it is for even a spirited and educated woman to escape a community complicit in a brutal arranged marriage, but few characters have complexity.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 14, 2008

Blind Mountain, the second film from fledgling Chinese filmmaker Li Yang, demonstrates many of the same qualities that made his first, Blind Shaft, one of the most promising directorial debuts of recent years.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Li's spare script works well with his choice to employ non-actors.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 24, 2008

It's a harsh portrait of a brutal segment of society, only relieved by an occasional handsome landscape shot (filmed in the Shaanxi province) that makes Bai's plight all the more compelling.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 11, 2008

[Director] Li was a documentarian before he switched to feature films with the highly praised 2003 feature Blind Shaft, and it shows in his raw style.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 19, 2008

This is a resolutely tough-minded, beautifully crafted film so compelling as to make bearable watching the nearly unbearable.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2008

Blind Mountain becomes a tense struggle of would-be escape.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 17, 2008

Colored fully within the lines and with scant few moments of fascination

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 13, 2008

For the second film in a row, [director] Li excoriates the values of an increasingly market-driven China, where people treat their fellows as products to be exploited, and scramble to get an edge on their 'competitors.'

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 13, 2008

Li's bold, angry film depicts a merciless society completely defined by commerce.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 12, 2008

Even trimmed, the film is a stinging and frightening indictment of mainland China.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 12, 2008

Blind Mountain, the second feature from Li Yang, is a reminder that art sometimes keeps the truth alive far better than the news.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 12, 2008

With Blind Mountain, 6th Generation Chinese maverick Li Yang continues his scorched-earth treatment of 5th Generation heroic peasant stereotypes launched by his debut feature Blind Shaft.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 12, 2008

Easily fits the paradigm parodied by Funny Games. The difference: This movie actually has a political point.

Full Review | Mar 11, 2008

The heat of empathetic outrage that Li generates from the audience is enough to make the theater combust.

Full Review | Mar 6, 2008

Li's documentary approach brooks no sentimentality in its portrayal of the loss of innocence.

| Mar 6, 2008

Harrowing but limpidly shot.

| May 23, 2007