Time Out Shanghai shows one of the greatest Chinese films of all time at Glam, M on the Bund, with complimentary gourmet popcorn and specially tailored drinks. This month it's number 15 on our list, 'China's Hitchcock' director Li Yang's critically acclaimed Blind Shaft.
Trapped by a life of meagre compensation and daily brutality in the mines, two migrant workers concoct a grisly scheme to get rich. They prey on the gullible: taking desperate kids, offering them jobs, then murdering them in faked mining accidents. Subsequently, and without remorse, they pose as the dead miners’ relatives to demand payouts from the mining company. But when a new boy who happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to their first victim comes along, one of the two swindlers begins to have second thoughts.
A seething indictment of the way that the ravenous appetite for getting rich in this country has displaced anything else that might give life meaning, Blind Shaft is elevated to the status of art by being, above all things, necessary. Claustrophobic to the point of asphyxiation, what is at stake in the film is no more or less than a boy’s life – and in it, the symbolic struggle of capital’s enslavement over humanity.
Entry is free, but you need to reserve a seat. Send ‘Film’ to our WeChat (timeoutshanghaien) to book your spot.
Glam Seventh Floor, Five on the Bund, 20 Guangdong Lu, near Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu. Sun 10. 4.15pm. Free.