Ash Is Purest White – Jiang hu er nü (2018)

Directed by: Jia Zhangke | 141 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Tao Zhao, Fan Liao, Yi’nan Diao, Xiaogang Feng, Casper Liang, Zheng Xu, Yibai Zhang

‘Ash is Purest White’ is about the passage of time, the time that some say is relentless and waits for no one. After five years in captivity, can you pick up your relationship where it was interrupted? And if so, if you were in jail defending your life partner, isn’t it fairer for him to seek you out again than the other way around?

After all, Qiao (Zhao Tao) has defended her boyfriend, the gangster Bin (Fan Liao), with a gun in a fight between gangs. A strong character who perseveres in her faith in love despite everything. However, the intimate manners of the Chinese are difficult to fathom: they seem to view love pragmatically and act situationally, but what they feel remains unclear.

An interesting premise, a strong protagonist, cultural insights. Quite a lot, yet the more than two hours long ‘Ash is Purest White’ regularly loses the attention of the viewer. Long, documentary conversations between minor characters on the train, the talk is less effective than the silences of the unapproachable Zhao and the poetic cinematography.

Director Jia occasionally fanned out his modern Chinese western. And what the hell does Qiao see in the drunken Bin? She belongs to him, she thinks, and he seems to let it lean on him. Cruel love, yes. “I’ll let you live because then I can see you suffer,” Qiao says to Bin at one point. Too sincere for a revenge motive, but also a bit morbid.

Strange, that characters don’t seem to have a double agenda, but are also incomprehensible. Perhaps Qiao thinks everything is better than being alone, and women are now taking the lead in the rapidly changing world of the Chinese wild west. Qiao seems to want to set Bin on the right path, a practical life goal that must be acted upon. Very Chinese, and probably love.