KAILI BLUES / LU BIAN YE CAN

This remarkable, dreamlike, intensely poetic feature is one of the most auspicious debuts of a young Chinese director in recent memory. Set in mystical Guizhou province, the story follows country doctor Chen Sheng, a man with a chequered past. He defended a bereaved gangster from even worse thugs, which landed him in jail for a spell. On his release, he bought into a rural medical practice with elderly and wise country doctor Zhao Daqing. Zhao harbours mementos of her old lover. Chen, post-release, remembers his dead wife Zhang Xi while worrying about his nephew young Weiwei, whom he thinks his ne’er-do-well brother Crazy Face wants to sell.
When Weiwei disappears, Chen heads out to find him, on a trip to riverside Kaili and the mysterious town of Dang Mai. There, his now grown-up son, his dead wife, and mementos from Doctor Zhao all combine in a near-miraculous, dreamlike sequence that transports the film into an enchanted, quasi-Buddhist realm (the Diamond sutra plays a key role) that seems to knit together past, present and future.
Time flows mysteriously but magically: a beautiful tour guide Yangyang materializes, siren-like, in an ancient river; a rock band plays Taiwanese oldies; trains flow through walls; a clock-man wields mastery over chronology...