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Reporter Gayu is sent to Kekexili, Tibet, to report on the work of
Ritai (Duo Bujie) & his mountain patrol, who desperately try to
protect the Tibetan Mountain Antelope, a species at the verge of
extinction who only lives in Kekexili, against poachers who shoot the
animal for its pelt.
At first the work of the mountain patrol seems rather routine &
essentially boring, like when they build roadposts & control cars full
of workers. Eventually though, they come across a car with its driver shot
in the head ... & they know the poachers can't be far away ...
Soon enough they come across a field covered with dead, skinned
antelopes, more than 500 of them, & a short time later they catch up
with a truck, but the persons on it claim to be merely drivers &
skinners, the actual poachers have long made good their escape. But the
patrolmen learn where they have dug in the pelts to later come back &
pluck them.
Now this might be considered as a success, but it isn't. With the
drivers & skinners as their prisoners, the patrolmen now have way too
many mouths to feed, & it only gets worse when one of the patrolmen is
injured, & to come up with even enough money for medical assistance,
the patrolmen deccide they have to sell some pelts, exactly the thing they
are fighting against
Soon enough, the food-rations come to an end, & Ritai has to let
his prisoners, led by old man Ma Zhanlin, go, even if that means leave
them behind in a snowstorm, which they may not survive ...
Soon enough, the group pursuing the poachers has shrunk down to four,
Ritai & Gayu of course among them, & they even have to abandon
their car ... & get into a snowstorm, where Ritai & Gayu lose the
others ... but instead find the poachers, and their former prisoners led
by Ma Zhanlin. When the poachers realize they have just captured Ritai,
the leader of the patrolmen, they immediately shoot them, but they let
Gayu go after Ma Zhanlin vouches for him not to be a patrolmen ...
& somehow, Gayu makes it back to civilisation & back to Beijing
& his article helps to turn Kekexili into a National Nature Preserve,
& helps save the Tibetan Mountain Antelope from extinction ... &
it's a true story, you know.
There are no two ways about it, Kekexili is a beautifully shot
film, & the Tibetan landscape alone is impressive enough, however,
somehow the content of the film doesn't quite live up to its pictures: For
some reason, all the characters stay horribly flat, simply do-gooders who
even take bold decisions to essentially do the right thing, & even
their occasional outbreaks of violence are always justified in the end.
Furthermore, the film never manages to build up enough tension &
suspense to involve the audience in the events of its engaging plot ...
which is a pity, with a good story to match the beautiful pictures, the
film could have been so much more.
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amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Kekexili at adultvideouniverse.com
