With its meandering narrative, it takes some patience to engage with Chinese writer/director Bi Gan’s “Kaili Blues,” but the effort is immensely rewarded with unusual immersion in contemporary life in Guizhou province, southwest China.

| May 1, 2024

Like the forty-minute long take at its center, Kaili Blues has a story, but its detours and details are more immediately compelling.

| Jan 6, 2021

An outstanding effort from Bi Gan, and while perhaps not one for mainstream audiences, it's a wonderful piece of craftsmanship that's well-deserving of its reputation

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2020

Infinitely wise and breathtakingly beautiful, Kaili Blues is definitely one of the very best films I've seen so far this year.

| Jul 17, 2020

"Kaili Blues" is a genuine art-house film, confusing to follow but visually captivating and a great testament to Bi Gan's directorial abilities.

| Dec 25, 2019

It's clear immediately that Bi isn't looking to deliver a straight-forward, narratively-coherent drama here...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 27, 2019

Bi has a gift gift for bewitching enigmas and virtuoso technique, and he is poised to become one of the most important Chinese filmmakers of the new millennium.

| Apr 15, 2019

If there is one single factor that can somehow explain the pleasure afforded by Bi Gan's directorial debut Kaili Blues, it would be its undisguised, unflinching audacity.

| Aug 25, 2018

A beautifully photographed visual dream-like, original, oblique arthouse film.

| Original Score: A | Jul 27, 2018

The intense blues and greens, the saturated, tangibly thick light and shade of the settings, the impossible visions of twirling, ever-present disco mirror balls, defying space, are conjured into light and sound, and, via poetry, into cinema.

| Oct 2, 2017

Gan's mastery of his cinematic resources is total: elegant all-encompassing paneos, impeccable framing and a perfectly choreographed sequence shot of more than 40 minutes that would be the envy of Lubezki and Irritu. [Full review in Spanish]

| Sep 13, 2017

Whether Bi [Gan] is familiar with the work of Marcel Proust or Jorge Luis Borges, he's definitely on their wavelength.

| Aug 18, 2017

Not for everyone, Kaili Blues is more about tone and emotion than plot or character specifics. The cinematography is startlingly rich in the greens and blues of the landscape sliding by as you travel with Chen.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 19, 2017

The most elusive and the most memorable new movie that I've seen in quite some time.

| Mar 28, 2017

You get to know the cameraman almost as well as the characters in this film in which past, present, future as memories collide, merge and loop around in interlocking circles.

| Original Score: B | Jan 17, 2017

Kaili Blues is an achievement that stands above films of its kind for exceeding the aesthetic brevity that stands before it. It is immersive, unpredictable and heartfelt.

| Jan 14, 2017

Kaili Blues reaches back into a timeless past and promises, for its bold young director, a brilliant future.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Nov 30, 2016

Like the films of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Cemetery of Splendour,") "Kaili Blues" is a poetic, offbeat film that's of the sort that adventurous filmgoers dream about.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 12, 2016

Bi Gan's art-house gem is a narrative experiment which intuitively bridges social realism and magic realism to tell a story of great emotional resonance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2016

Bi Gan directed this boldly original debut feature.

| Aug 11, 2016