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Take a deadpan trip to a Chinese ghost town, where magical soap, bumbling cops and a trickster monk collude in this award-winning absurdist comedy.
Set in the atmospheric, burned-out industrial landscapes of remote northern China, this wry, offbeat comedy from director Jun Geng follows a travelling soap salesman whose product has the power to cleanse his customers of both their senses and money. Throw in a pair of incompetent law enforcers, a Buddhist monk plying a dubious trade in talismans and a cast of eccentric locals in an unusual setting, and you've got a recipe for the kind of droll escapade sure to delight fans of Jarmusch, the Coens and Kaurismäki.
Jun's new feature won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance, and it's characterised by the director's expressive use of space and composition in evoking this strange, haunted nowhere town and its collection of oddballs. Visually arresting and dryly funny, it plays against convention to emerge as a genuine original.
'An offbeat, sidelong glance at Chinese society which combines a striking visual impact with underplayed, deadpan humour.' – Screen Daily
