Ash Is Purest White

Director: Jia Zhangke

2018 / 136min / DCP

Jia’s longtime collaborator and muse Zhao Tao has one of her greatest roles in crime melodrama Ash is Purest White, depicting the same character, that of Qiao, the loyal partner of a Hong Kong action movie-aping Datong gangster, over the course of nearly 20 years. Using a triptych structure whose sections are divided by ellipses covering years, Jia and Zhao follow the indefatigably devoted Qiao from her reckless youth in 2001 to her rueful maturity of 2017, with a fast-changing China as the backdrop to her story. A gripping, heartbreaking, and at times rather funny work from the great cinematic chronicler of modern China.

Part of Visionary Auteurs: Five Decades of mk2