Deep in the Heart

On the occasion of first Creative China Festival hosted by BCAF, “New Noir: Chinese Crime Films” presented six hard-hitting films directed by Chinese filmmakers who redefined the crime genre in China, including Deep in the Heart.

The film takes place at a remote village in China. When a burnt body is discovered in the vicinity of a mountain village, the search is on to discover how it got there. Xin employs a chopped-up timeline to deepen the mystery in his riddle of a film, an unflinching depiction of provincial imprisonment which begins with Zongyao (Wang Xiaotian), the son of the village chief, struggling to free himself from family ties before opening up to multiple perspective in a series of surprising metamorphosis.