River Road (film)

River Road (Chinese: 家在水草丰茂的地方; pinyin: jiā zài shuǐ cǎo fēng mào de dì fāng) is a 2014 Chinese film written and directed by Li Ruijun and starring Tang Long and Guo Songtao. A masterfully lensed nomadic road movie set in Li's dusty native province of Gansu in Northwestern China, it follows two Yugur ethnic minority brothers venturing out on camelback in search of their herdsman father. It made its world premiere at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival in 2014.[1][2][3]

River Road
Film poster
Directed byLi Ruijun
Produced byYang Cheng
Geng Xiaonan
Li Ruijun
Screenplay byLi Ruijun
StarringTang Long
Guo Songtao
Music byPeyman Yazdanian
CinematographyLiu Yonghong
Edited byLi Ruijun
Release date
Running time
103 minutes
CountryChina
LanguageTurkic
Mandarin

Synopsis

While their parents graze their sheep far from the town, Adikeer (Tang Long) stays in a boarding school in town and his older brother Bartel (Guo Songtao) lives with their grandfather, a sheep-herder from the Buddhist Yugur ethnic minority. When their father fails to pick them up for summer break and their grandfather dies suddenly, the two brothers embark on a journey with their camels across the vast, dry expanse of Western China alone, in search of their father by following the path of a dried-up river bed.[4][5]

Cast
  • Tang Long as Adikeer
  • Guo Songtao as Bartel
  • Bai Wenxin as Grandfather
  • Guo Jianmin as Father
  • Ma Xingchun as Monk

Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Recipient Result
201427th Tokyo International Film Festival[6]Best FilmRiver RoadNominated
2nd International Film Festival of Colombo[7]Best Film (Asian Competition)Won
201565th Berlin International Film Festival[6]Best Feature FilmNominated
39th Hong Kong International Film Festival[8]SIGNIS AwardWon

Reception

With no big stars and a little-known director, River Road has been largely neglected at the box office from the very beginning, even though domestic film critics like Wei Junzi highly recommended it on Sina Weibo on the day of the premiere. Wei wrote, "River Road uses children's visual angel to tell the past and contemporary of a civilization. Poetic, deliberate, and sad, it is a rare work of Chinese films." Director Li admits that he and executive producer Fang Li had foreseen the situation but what he had not expected was that cinemas would be unwilling to showing his film.[6]

Tokyo International Film Festival: A coming-of-age drama couched in the guise of an adventure – with a winning sense of humor rooted in careful attention to detail. As suggested by its epic scale, the work has the classic qualities of a film that allows us to enjoy being emotionally affected emotional by what we see.[2]

Film Society of Lincoln Center: Li's film earns its emotional payoff thanks to the incredible performances of the young leads. Featuring the sand-blown splendor of infinitely sprawling vistas, ghost towns, and touches of the fantastic, River Road is an absolute masterpiece of Chinese filmmaking.[1]

The Society For Film's Fernando Gros: River Road is a bold and surprising film, an ecological parable that gently draws the viewer in and delivers with surprising, emotionally compelling conclusion. One of the best Chinese dramas I have seen in the last twenty years this is essential viewing. Highly recommended.[4]

Rukor: China's indie film makers have a hard time, and little opportunity to connect with wider audiences. River Road so easily could slip back into the shadows, having had screenings only in a few film festivals. Yet it is the most compelling climate change movie yet, and it deserves to be better known.[9]

References
  1. "River Road". Film Society of Lincoln Center. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  2. "RIVER ROAD". Tokyo International Film Festival. October 2014. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  3. "River Road 家在水草丰茂的地方". YouTube. 11 September 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  4. Gros, Fernando (26 October 2014). "River Road". The Society For Film. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  5. Young, Deborah (29 October 2014). "River Road: Tokyo Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  6. Wei, Xi (29 October 2015). "Li Ruijun's River Road". Global Times. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
  7. Ramachandran, Naman (11 November 2015). "River Road, Motor Bicycle Ride Off With Colombo Festival Prizes". Variety. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  8. Ramachandran, Naman (3 April 2015). "Chinese film River Road Wins SIGNIS Award at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2015". SIGNIS. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  9. "THE GREATEST CLIMATE CHANGE MOVIE EVER". Rukor. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
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