'Kekexili Mountain Patrol' is the true story of actions taken in the pursuit of, and against, antelope smuggling in Tibet in the 1990s. In its favour, the film contains plenty of stunning Tibetan scenery to view, and an interesting portrait of life in difficult times. On the other hand, the acting (from a largely amateur cast) and the dialogue (especially) is often rudimentary and poor. Also of note is that the judgement of the group leader seems absurdly stupid - he drives hundreds of miles into the wilderness, before calculating that he doesn't have sufficient food or fuel to get back! This film has probably been over-praised (if judged purely as an artwork) by those with affinity for all things Tibetan. If you like mountains, you'll love it: but don't expect to see too much else.

This film returns to the topics and aesthetics of New Chinese cinemas of the Fifth Generation filmmakers. There are especially strong connections to Chen Kaige's first film "Yellow Earth" (1984). The harsh, unforgiving natural elements in Kekexili (and in Tibet more generally) are both beautiful and harrowing, similar to the landscape in "Yellow Earth". The outsider reporter/photographer Ga Yu from Beijing echoes "Yellow Earth" character Brother Gu, of the Eighth Route Army, who is a visitor to the impoverished peasant family in that earlier film. Unlike the early Fifth Generation works by Zhang Yimou such as "Ju Dou" and "Raise the Red Lantern", "Kekexili" is set in very contemporary times and as such, the criticism of government policies and neglect is much stronger. In scenes of violence, the film's use of long shots and long takes is more powerful than the more common use of editing to extreme close ups.

Here is a film with serious technical and narrative flaws that can easily be forgiven because the movie gives us a wondrous gaze into a stupendous, exotic world, stretching far beyond what we have known or seen before.This is a docudrama based on facts about people who live on a Tibetan plain four miles high which shelters Tibetan antelope, a species that had been threatened with extinction in recent years because of aggressive poaching to harvest highly prized pelts. Poaching became a serious problem here in about 1985. After years of witnessing declining herds, the native people in the region in 1993 took matters into their own hands, forming their own mountain patrol to interdict poaching.The patrol served this goal admirably for a few short years, until 1996, when the increasing hardships of sustaining these efforts coincided with a government decision to declare the plain a wildlife preserve. The patrol was disbanded and, since then, the numbers of antelope have gradually increased, up to 30,000 or more at the time this film was made.The story is a dramatic reenactment of events presumably typical of the mountain patrol period (1993-96). Captain Ritai is about to lead a monthly tour of the region, a caravan of three SUVs transporting about 10 heavily armed men, and, this time, also a journalist, Gayu, from Bejing, who is accepted by the men because his father is Tibetan.Besides the vast flat windswept snowy plain itself, and the massive mountains that border it in the distance, we witness evidence of wholesale slaughtering of antelope (one scene shows the vulture-cleaned carcasses of over 400), armed clashes with poachers, several shooting deaths and injuries, severe cases of pulmonary edema from exertion during chases, and a death when quicksand entraps one of Ritai's men.The story, which begins strongly enough with the shooting of a patrol member by poachers, gradually loses the traction of credibility as Ritai seems to abandon any semblance of good judgment, pursuing the leaders of the poacher gang even as his supplies of food and fuel dwindle to the danger point, and attrition of his team from illness and injury mounts. So the story goes, the journalist Gayu was the only survivor of this particular patrol, and his subsequent stories published in the nation's capital were influential in bringing about government action to establish the preserve.Anyone with a thirst for knowing more about extraordinary and inaccessible cultures should rush to see this film, flawed though it is. You will see the reverence for life of these people, who take the time even to pile up hundreds of antelope carcasses to burn in a funeral pyre. You see the tender manner in which these courageous men embrace, knowing that the rigors of their mission may mean death before another meeting. You enter a remote brothel of the sort established in Tibet only recently as a byproduct of Chinese occupation. You discover that the men must pay dearly in cash to obtain emergency medical aid for patrol members who are ill. And there's more.Kekexili, by the way, means beautiful mountains and girls, we and the journalist Gayu are told. My grade: B 6/10.

Tells the true story of a volunteer force that tried to head off the depredations of poachers in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of Asia. Although not strictly a Hollywood-style Western, this movie undoubtedly has a great many Western motifs, most notably the main characters' uneasy relationship with their environment. (They both seem to derive incalculable strength from it and are literally swamped/swallowed up in it -- the cinematography is superb and this movie demands to be seen on the big screen.Often quite grim, with various characters meeting bitter and rather unexpected ends. Solid and underplayed throughout, and an interesting look at how China views Tibet. Strongly recommended.