This is acclaimed director Jia Zhang-ke’s haunting and devastating take on how the rapid economic expansion of China is hitting the majority of people in these four separate stories of unparalleled violence.

The first tale is of Dahai an ex-miner who goes on a rampage after he fails to report the Village Chief for selling off the miner and, with a local businessman, pocketing the proceeds themselves.  The second is about Zhou a quiet unremarkable man who goes back to his hometown for his aged mother’s birthday and at the same managing to squeeze in a couple of jobs as a paid assassin. Then there is the Massage Parlor receptionist, jilted by her longtime married boyfriend, and who loses it completely when her boss now wants her to turn tricks too.  And the final, and the saddest story of all, of the young kid from the provinces who can only get a menial job on a factory line or in a brothel and he simply runs out of the resolution to put up with either.

Visually stunning with vast industrial landscapes and although the violent outbursts are highly stylised they are still horrifically brutal and bloody and very tough to view.

A movie of epic proportions (and at 133 mins, epic length) that needs a second (third) viewing to get beyond the savagery and really sift through the countless complex layers that Zhang-ke has weaved into his damning view of contemporary China.

★★★★★★★★