Black Coal, Thin Ice
| Black Coal, Thin Ice | |
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| Directed by | Diao Yinan |
| Produced by | Vivian Qu |
| Screenplay by | Diao Yinan |
| Starring |
Liao Fan Gwei Lun-Mei Wang Xuebing |
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Release date
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Running time
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106 mins |
| Country | China |
| Language | Mandarin |
| Box office | US$16,460,000 |
Black Coal, Thin Ice (Chinese: 白日焰火; pinyin: Bai Ri Yan Huo; literally: "Daylight Fireworks") is a 2014 Chinese thriller film written and directed by Diao Yinan, and produced by Vivian Qu. The film won the Golden Bear award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
In Heilongjiang Province, 1999, the dismembered parts of a human body appear in shipments of coal in different cities. Detective Zhang (Liao Fan) is assigned to investigate. The dead man is identified as a coal worker named Liang Zhijun, according to an identification badge next to some of the remains. Zhang and his partners (including Wang) go to interview a potential suspect and his brother. The suspect kills two of Zhang's partners before being shot by Zhang. Zhang is then shot by the suspect's brother. Zhang survives. Wang and Zhang return the ashes of Liang to his widow Wu (Gwei Lun-Mei), an employee at Rong Rong Laundry. Wu buries the ashes at the base of a tree just outside Rong Rong Laundry.
By 2004, Zhang has quit the police force and become a drunken security guard, having been traumatized by the prior events. During a chance encounter with Wang, Zhang learns that two additional murders have happened with the same modus operandi. The common thread is that both of these men had dated Wu at some point. Both men were wearing ice skates when they were killed. Zhang feels intrigued and begins to investigate. He becomes a frequent customer of Rong Rong Laundry and tries to follow Wu at night, but she easily detects him. One day, the owner of the store, Rong Rong (Wang Jingchun), explains to Zhang that he employs Wu out of sympathy, even though she doesn't do her job properly. In fact, five years before, Wu had damaged a highly expensive jacket, although a few days later the jacket's owner stopped complaining and disappeared.
Zhang tries to make friends with Wu, and eventually invite her to go ice-skating together at an outdoor rink. Wang is secretly following the pair when he notices that a truck driver is also following them. He follows the truck driver, but while arresting him, the truck driver kills him using the blades of a pair of ice-skates as a weapon. The murder of his former partner makes Zhang even more determined. He follows up on a license plate written down on a pad of paper (presumedly by Wang). While on the bus Zhang is followed by a man with a pair of skates. He goes into a restaurant and notices the man following him. He loses the man at a dance hall. The next day he follows the truck and sees the man dispose of paper wrapped bags from a overpass onto passing coal trains. He then follows the man to the same outdoor ice skating rink. To test his new theory of the case Zhang asks for Liang Zhijun to be paged (the 1st murder victim from 1999). The man Zhang was following reacts by immediately leaving the rink.
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