Cohen Media Group has debuted an official US trailer for the film Ash Is Purest White, the latest from acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke. This sprawling drama spans nearly 16 years, focusing on the relationship between a gangster and the woman who loves him, named Qiao.
The film follows Qiao, a woman in love with Bin, a local mobster. During a fight between rival gangs, she fires a gun to protect him. Qiao gets five years in prison for this act of loyalty. Upon her release, she goes looking for Bin to pick up where they left off. The film acts as an examination of China as it has evolved since 2001 and also a look at how romance and relationships evolve or halt over time. Ash Is Purest White is a fusion of innovation, entertainment, and social critique.
Check out the trailer below:
Ash Is Purest White is written and directed by acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, who previously directed modern classics of world cinema like Platform, Unknown Pleasures, Still Life, and A Touch of Sin. His previous film, Mountains May Depart, also followed a decades-long story of friends. The Chinese drama film was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The film also played at the New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Munich, London, Chicago, and Torino Film Festivals. Ash Is Purest White has already opened in China as of last September.
Director Zhangke told EW in an interview that he “…really want to talk about are the rules of this society in the past twenty years: values that are based on affection and loyalty…. It changes and vanishes every year.” He continues, “The story starts in 2001, the year that China joined the World Trade Organization. The year that China won the right to host the Olympic Games was 2008, and this was the year that the development of economy in China started rapidly booming. It was a very crucial year for China: the internet became a big part of people’s lives and all of society started to change.”
You can check out a pair of posters for the film below:
Here’s the synopsis:
A tragicomedy initially set in the jianghu (criminal underworld setting,) ASH IS PUREST WHITE begins by following the quick-witted Qiao (Tao Zhao) and her mobster boyfriend Bin (Fan Liao) as they stake out their turf against rivals and upstarts in 2001 postindustrial Datong before expanding out into an epic narrative of how abstract forces shape individual lives. With a three-part structure and stunning cinematography by French director of photography Eric Gautier (Motorcycles Diaries, A Christmas Tale, Summer Hours,) ASH IS PUREST WHITE continues Jia Zhang-Ke’s body of work as a record of 21st-century China and its warp-speed transformations.
Cohen Media Group will release Jia Zhangke’s Ash Is Purest White in select US theaters starting on March 15th, 2019.
Sources: Cohen Media Group
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