''Mountains May Depart'' () is a 2015

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

-language drama and the 8th feature film directed by Jia Zhangke. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the

2015 Cannes Film Festival The 68th Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 to 24 May 2015. Joel and Ethan Coen were the Presidents of the Jury for the main competition. It was the first time that two people chaired the jury. Since the Coen brothers each received a separate ...

. and was also selected to be shown in the Special Presentations section of the

2015 Toronto International Film Festival The 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 10 to 20 September 2015. On 28 July 2015 the first wave of films to be screened at the Festival was announced. Jean-Marc Vallée's ''Demolition'' starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naom ...

Plot

In 1999

Fenyang Fenyang (), formerly as Fenyang County () before 1996, is a county-level city under the administration of Lüliang prefecture-level city, in Shanxi Province, China. Fenyang is located in the wide valley of the Fen River, some 20-plus kilometers w ...

, 25-year-old shopkeeper Tao finds herself in a love-triangle between Liangzi, a good friend and poor laborer in a local coal mine who has unrequited feelings for her, and Jinsheng, a well-off gas station owner who, despite being pompous and cruel, she is more attracted to. Tao showing affection for Jinsheng sets off a confrontation between her two suitors. Tao and Jinsheng decide to get married. Liangzi, feeling incapable of maintaining a platonic friendship with Tao, leaves town. In 2014, Tao is now divorced from Jinsheng and still living in Fenyang, running the gas station and being a prominent and generous woman in the city. Jinsheng has since remarried and lives in Shanghai and has become wealthy from investments. Liangzi works as a miner near

Handan Handan is a prefecture-level city located in the southwest of Hebei province, China. The southernmost prefecture-level city of the province, it borders Xingtai on the north, and the provinces of Shanxi on the west, Henan on the south and Shando ...

and has gotten ill. Tao and Jinsheng's son, Daole (pronounced Dollar in English) aged 7, comes to visit the funeral of Tao's father. Tao is upset by Daole's distance, and behaves bitсhily towards him. Tao, knowing they are fated to be apart, decides to ride the slow train with Daole. As a parting gift, Tao gives Daole a set of keys for her house so that he can return to his home whenever he wants. In 2025, Daole (now currently called Dollar) is attending college in Australia. He is constantly fighting with his father over his desire to drop out of college and have the freedom he was never granted in his childhood. He meets Mia, his Chinese language teacher, an older woman for whom he develops feelings and eventually begins a relationship with. Dollar shares with Mia how he still carries the keys his mother gave him when he was a young boy, and that he fears she may die even though they have not talked for years. Mia convinces him to fly back to China with her so that he can see Tao. The film ends with Tao dancing to Go West; any reunion with Daole (Dollar) is not seen.

Cast

Zhao Tao Zhao Tao (born 28 January 1977) is a Chinese actress. She works in China and occasionally Europe, and has appeared in 10 films and several shorts since starting her career in 1999. She is best known for her collaborations with her husband, di ...

* Zhang Yi *Liang Jingdong *

Dong Zijian Dong Zijian (, born 19 December 1993) is a Chinese actor. He is best known for his roles in ''Young Style'' (2013), ''Mountains May Depart'' (2015), ''De Lan'' (2015) and ''At Cafe 6'' (2016). Early life and education Dong is born in Beijing, Ch ...

Sylvia Chang Sylvia Chang (born 21 July 1953) is a Taiwanese actress, writer, singer, producer and director. In 1992, she was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. In 2018, she was one of the jury members of the main competition ...

Rong Zishan Rong Zishan is a Chinese actor and model, best known for his portrayal of Dollar Zhang in ''Mountains May Depart'' and Zhu Chaoyang in '' The Bad Kids''. Personal life Rong was born on February 3, 2006, in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, and grew ...

*Liang Yonghao *Liu Lu *Yuan Wenqian

Reception

Box office

The film earned at the Chinese box office.

Critical reception

''Mountains May Depart'' holds a 79/100 average on review aggregation site Metacritic. Peter Bradshaw of '' The Guardian'' wrote, "Jia Zhang-ke’s ''Mountains May Depart'' is a mysterious and in its way staggeringly ambitious piece of work from a film-maker whose creativity is evolving before our eyes." Scott Foundas of '' Variety'' states "''Mountains May Depart'' is never less than a work of soaring ambition and deeply felt humanism, as Jia longs not so much to turn back the hands of time, but to ever so slightly slow them down."

Derek Elley Derek Elley (born c. 1955) is an American film and music critic and author, best known as the resident film critic for ''Variety'' until his departure in March 2010. With over 1200 reviews to his credit as of December 2014 on ''Rotten Tomatoes'', h ...

of ''

Film Business Asia ''Film Business Asia'' was a film trade magazine based in Hong Kong. The magazine was created in 2010 by Patrick Frater, former journalist for ''Variety'', ''The Hollywood Reporter'', and '' Screen International'' and Stephen Cremin, co-founder o ...

'' gave it a 5 out of 10, calling the film a "weakly written saga of friendship hatgoes way off the rails in the final part."

Music

* " Go West" (1993) by the

Pet Shop Boys The Pet Shop Boys are an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1981. Consisting of primary vocalist Neil Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe, they have sold more than 50 million records worldwide, and were listed as the most successful duo i ...

Antoine Duplan
"« Au-delà des montagnes » : l’argent ne fait pas le bonheur de la Chine"
'' Le Temps'', Tuesday 26 January 2016 (page visited on 3 February 2016). * " Take care" (, 1990) by Sally Yeh () Go West plays a prominent role in the film as the film opens to a scene on New Year's Eve 1999 with Tao happily dancing to the song with friends and closes in 2025 with a scene of Tao crying and dancing along to it near an old pagoda in the snow. Incidentally, in both scenes, Tao gestures with her arm to make waves, and "Tao" means waves in Chinese. In an interview with ''AV Club'' Jia states that he was attempting to evoke a "collective history for that generation."

References

External links

* * * * {{Portal bar, China, Film 2015 drama films 2015 films Chinese drama films Jin Chinese-language films Films directed by Jia Zhangke Films set in 1999 Films set in 2014 Films set in 2025 Films set in Australia Films set in China Films shot in Australia French drama films Japanese drama films Tianjin Maoyan Media films 2010s Mandarin-language films 2010s Japanese films 2010s French films