''Black Coal, Thin Ice'' is a sinister neo-noir movie by renowned Chinese actor, director and screenwriter Diao Yinan. The film is a mixture of a slow-paced thriller and a depressing drama. The movie received wide critical acclaim and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival among others.Sadly, this movie is a good example for the fact that critically acclaimed movies rarely appeal to wider audiences. Things start promisingly in the beginning when body parts are found in different coal factories in the People's Republic of China in 1999. The locations look empty, grey and polluted and show unusually cold-hearted, contemporary and realistic facets of the country. Just about fifteen minutes into the movie, a very weird scene occurs. The cops want to interview a first suspect and the whole event escalates for no apparent reason. The suspect and some of his friends die as well as several cops. We soon get to know that the suspects didn't seem to have anything to do with the murder and the question is why they would immediately panic when they saw the police and try to kill everyone around them. The whole scene was intense and had a shocking effect but it felt exaggerated and almost surreal. The promisingly slow start felt disharmonically interrupted and botched.This opening massacre is not the only time characters are acting in abnormally weird ways in this movie. The movie surely includes a lot of symbolism and metaphors and tries to portray loneliness and rejection in a directionless and industrialized society but some scenes are out of place and so surreal that they somehow contradict the dark realism of the plot. While the movie has several interesting experimental ideas, other parts are unnecessarily long-winded and the plot itself is not surprising enough to carry over almost two hours. The film feels as if Charles Bukowski met David Lynch in an industrial ghost town to elaborate a script that is missing that certain something. The plot itself is not complex enough to make this a good thriller. The characters are not profound enough to make this an intense drama. The story is not surreal enough to make this an uneasy mystery movie. This film includes elements of all these genres but not enough of everything to fully convince and sometimes feels directionless. What could have been a revolutionary mixture of genres feels headless at certain moments.The initially interesting characters and solid acting also fail to develop further as the movie goes on. Five years after the first crime and its ensuing massacre, other dismembered body parts are found that all seem to lead to the mysterious widow of the first victim. The two desperate, disgraced and lonesome cops who survived the opening massacre try to find the real murderer behind these gruesome crimes. One has become a drunken security guard who desperately wants to solve the murder case that destroyed his life. He first investigates and stalks the mysterious and quiet widow before he begins a romantic relationship with her. This relationship between two solitary souls could have been an amazing idea. The concept isn't new but movies such as ''Sea of Love'' or ''Basic Instinct'' have shown what you can make with such a plot. Sadly, the two main characters don't connect on any level. Even their common loneliness is lived in different facets and it's challenging if not impossible to feel empathy for any of them. I found that the conclusion of this initially promising relationship felt disjunct. Maybe it was the director's intension to let his sinister piece of art end in a heartless way but it felt too neutral to be either heartless or emotional. Once again, a middle way was chosen that feels somewhat botched.The closing scenes with the drunk security guard dancing with himself to a horrid pop song and some teenagers starting fireworks at daytime feel extremely pretentious. I'm aware of the fact that the director wanted to show the cop's deliverance from his demons and the start of a new life for him in the former scene and the mixture of mysterious fantasy and depressing realism as guide line through the movie in the latter scene but these parts felt once again forced, out of context and under-developed. The director tried too hard to show how creative he is and that's why these closing scenes are plain unsatisfying. Fans of the movie will probably believe that some viewers didn't get all the allusions but that isn't the problem. The director wanted to achieve too many things at the same time and failed in a nearly arrogant way.The only positive elements that remain are the thoroughly sinister atmosphere created by grey settings, probably intentionally paralyzed acting skills, chillingly calm camera techniques, a fitting soundtrack and a few good acting parts. Despite a handful of potentially creative, philosophical and even revolutionary ideas from the filmmaker, this movies falls flat because of its own directionless, over-ambitioned and slow-paced pretentiousness. Fans of art-house cinema and philosophical neo-noir movies can give this a try. Those who are looking for a profound drama or engaging thriller should look elsewhere.

I have seen various Chinese films (specially during the '90s, the golden age of Hong Kong), but I think Black Coal, Thin Ice is the first (from what I have seen) genuinely Chinese movie, because it embraces the national idiosyncrasy and offers us a revealing look to the culture of that country. Black Coal, Thin Ice is also an excellent thriller on its own right. Its screenplay employs many elements of classic noir: the failed detective, a confusing but vaguely logical mystery and the obligatory femme fatale who might be guilty of the crimes or an innocent victim of circumstances. However, director and screenwriter Yi'nan Diao filters those components through his particular sensibility, and the result is so natural that it borders on the prosaic. For example, near the beginning of the film, there is a very short shootout, shot almost with apathy... the camera is midway and it barely moves; but the impact of the scene is tremendous, manifesting the easiness with which tragedy can come, completely lacking of the artifice and ornaments we see in many Hollywood films. This doesn't mean that Black Coal, Thin Ice feels flat or superficial. The "anti-style" of the scenes and their minimalistic aesthetic is obviously intentional, highlighting the characters' opaque lives and the bleak social setting of poverty and corruption, in which dignity and "political correction" are almost inexistent. And all that is framed by a grey wintry atmosphere, ready to trample human spirit even more. In conclusion, Black Coal, Thin Ice is an innovative and fascinating interpretation of contemporary neo-noir, deceiving us with false clues, obfuscating our perception and saving the revelations for an ending which is as austere and enigmatic as the rest of the film. Black Coal, Thin Ice might not be everyone's cup of tea, but whoever is willing to face the challenge of watching something new and unusual will surely appreciate Diao's intention and his strange ordinary/dreamlike style.

There are definitely some impressive technical flourishes here. The lighting and the colors used are gorgeous, and really do highlight a lot of the film's atmosphere, which is the other good thing about it. It's able to achieve atmosphere in a rather surprising way, but it's just too bad hat that atmosphere is wasted and doesn't really highlight much. The acting is decent, but the story and the screenplay leave a lot to be desired. The characters just aren't developed all that well, and just are so, so dull. The film's sense of pacing and development are non- existent. I don't think this is anything worthwhile, although I'm sure many will like it just fine.

Black Coal, Thin Ice is the kind of film that can only be felt, the charming point of the film is the indescribable feeling you get from the unique atmosphere. It's a suspense film with sort of Film-Noir feeling, but the plot of the case actually is not so important. As I said, what matters is the feeling. Those empty street shots, environment background sounds, strange acts and even some dark humor tastes. It even looks like a Jia Zhangke's film sometimes.(Well, Jia Zhangke's name did appear in the thank list in the end credits.) Such feeling reached the top in the ending of the pyrotechnical in daytime, it not only reflect the title (The Chinese title is Bai ri yan huo, which means The Daylight Pyrotechnix.) but also release the depressed emotion and atmosphere. (The Uncut Version has very strange but interesting dark humor style scenes in the ending, but they are cut out in the Censored Mainland China Theatrical Version.)The atmosphere in the film is nearly perfect, however the romance relationship between two characters is not believable at all. The whole film is based on that relationship, but it didn't convince me. Without the reliable relationship, the rest of the film seems not make sense at all. So yeah, it's a rare and unique film in Chinese cinema, it is well did in many aspects, but I don't think it is qualified for Golden Berlin Bear.My score: 7.5 for the Uncut Version, 7.3 for the Mainland China Censored Theatrical Version.