Yu Zhang

Sure to be remembered as a landmark in Chinese cinema, this intensely felt epic marks a career cut tragically short: its debut director Hu Bo took his life in October 2017, at the age of 29. The protagonist of this modern reworking of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts is teenage Wei Bu, who critically injures a school bully by accident. Over a single, eventful day, he crosses paths with a classmate, an elderly neighbor, and the bully's older brother,...

While protecting his friend from a school bully, sixteen-year-old Wei Bu pushes the bully down a staircase. He later learns that the bully is hospitalized, gravely injured. Wei's neighbor, 60-year-old Wang Jin, decides to join him as does Huang Ling, Wei's classmate. Together, they decide their only hope is to flee town. They board a bus to Manchuria, where it is a rumored that a circus elephant is said to be sitting still, seeming oblivious to pain...