Charleston County Public Library

Black coal, thin ice, Jiangsu Omnijoi Movie Co

chi

videorecording

Black coal, thin ice

DVD

889828541

Jiangsu Omnijoi Movie Co

110

A town in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, 1999. The body parts of a murdered man are found scattered within a 100-kilometre radius, and the victim is identified by an identity card as Liang Zhijun (Wang Xuebing), who worked in a local coal plant. Zhijun's wife, Wu Zhizhen (Gwei Lun-mei), works at a small dry-cleaning shop run by He Mingrong (Wang Jingchun), who is attracted to her. Detective Zhang Zili (Liao Fan), who has just been through a painful divorce from his wife (Ni Jingyang), identifies two coal workers, brothers Liu Fayin and Liu Faxing, as suspects. During their arrest, a gun battle breaks out and both brothers, plus two detectives, die; Zili is wounded. Five years later, Zili is working as a security guard at a factory. Still traumatised by what happened back in 1999, he's drinking heavily. His former colleague, Wang (Yu Ailei), approaches him with details of two recent murders which bear a similarity to the original case and whose victims, both found wearing ice skates, also knew Zhizhen. Zili decides to privately investigate and follows Zhizhen around. She warns him off but he perseveres, and she finally agrees to go ice-skating with him. Wang follows them and tries to warn Zili not to become too emotionally involved with Zhizhen. Meanwhile, Wang is murdered by Zhijun, who is in fact still alive. Zili later follows Zhijun and sees him disposing of Wang's body parts, but fails to apprehend him. The police question Zhizhen, but the case is not over yet by a long mark. -- Container

live action