Bing Du

Ice Poison
A young farmer and his father are barely able to survive on their meagre corn harvest and so they make their way down from the mountains to the village to borrow money from their relatives working in jade mines or on opium plantations. But missing paperwork, deceit and corruption have left them impoverished too. Finally, the father pawns his cow for a moped so that his son can earn a living as a taxi driver.
His first customer is Sanmei, who has returned to Myanmar to bury her grandfather. She decides not to go back to China and to get out of an arranged marriage in order to begin a new life with her son in her old country. When Sanmei accepts a job as a drug runner she persuades the young farmer to be her driver.
As with his earlier films, Midi Z illuminates unobtrusively yet unsparingly the political situation in his country. Sensitively, with subtle humour and with a grand yet minimal list style the film quietly observes two people’s sense of alienation and their fear of losing their livelihood, pursuing them to an empty karaoke bar where they allow their dream of a secure place in the world to sparkle.
by Midi Z
with Wang Shin-Hong, Wu Ke-Xi
Taiwan / Myanmar 2014 95’

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