“(A) slow-to-boil, hard-to-shake drama.” – Manhola Dargis, The New York Times

“Stunningly realistic!” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“An excellent cast makes this an enormously compelling and frightening trip.” – New York Magazine

“A horror film based less in violence than in logic. What sets the unwitting heroine of BLIND MOUNTAIN apart is the intensity and intellect that Ms. Huang brings to the part.
It’s a rare thing to encounter a movie so overflowing with outrage, so unflinching in its depiction of an injustice.”
– James Snyder, The New York Sun

“Strong meat for a movie from the People’s Republic.
As the captive, pretty Lu Huang gives a bold, nuanced performance in a film (that) earned a thunderclap of applause and cheers from the audience.”
– Richard Corliss, Time (reporting from Cannes)

“A harsh social melodrama structured as a psychological thriller. Here corruption is incarnated in the trade
in kidnapped brides.”
– Charles Whitehouse, Sight & Sound

“Extraordinary. The movie (has) enormous political impact as well as being a moving drama... Helped greatly by the work of Taiwanese cinematographer Jong Lin (EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN), Li conveys the insular traditions of the villagers while abhorring their brutality and greed. He draws wonderful performances from a cast that includes local amateurs and professionals, including the utterly credible Huang, who plays the abducted woman with intelligence and indomitable grace.”
– Ray Bennett, The Hollywood Reporter

“Yang demonstrates once again that he is a master of cinematic tension” – Lee Marshall, Screen International

Modern-day slavery in China: an attractive, urbane young woman travels to a remote village in mountainous Shaanxi province for a job she has been promised. Instead she is kidnapped, drugged, and sold into marriage. Huang Lu gives a stirring performance as the unwitting bride whose increasingly desperate and ingenious attempts to escape pit her against a corrupt community and its government enablers. Controversial Chinese filmmaker Li Yang (who exposed criminal scams in the Chinese mining industry in BLIND SHAFT) was inspired by the horrific reality of human trafficking for this riveting thriller. Real-life kidnapped brides were cast in several roles.

GERMANY/HONG KONG/CHINA • 2007 • 97 MINUTES • IN MANDARIN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES • KINO INTERNATIONAL

Listen to our podcast:
BLIND MOUNTAIN: Q & A with director Li Yang translated by William Phuan (Recorded March 12, 2008)

Available at Amazon:

BLIND SHAFT, a film by Li Yang