BLACK COAL, THIN ICE (BAI RI YAN HUO) World Cinema

A trail of dismembered human remains discovered in 1999 in a coal factory in northern China sets the stage for Diao Yinan’s bleak and deliberate detective story. After quickly identifying a suspect in the meticulous slaying, detective Zhang becomes entangled in a merciless and botched shoot-out that ends his career and leaves him traumatized. Five years later, Zhang is a drunken security guard and shell of his former self, drained of hope — until the murders start again. A one-man investigation team, he vows to unearth the brutal killer at all costs, and his journey takes him down a dark road from which there is no return. A potent hybrid of carefully composed genre plotting that hides a masterfully poetic and artful approach, BLACK COAL, THIN ICE is an ode to Western pulpy noirs couched in Eastern philosophical ruminations.