“Chill Ravine” (“Linlie Shangu”, the Chinese title means the same as in English) is a 26-minute short film from mainland China that has enjoyed a respectable festival run. Among other accolades, it won the Best Short Film award at the Cine Paris Festival in March 2025.
Watch This Title
on CathayPlay by clicking on the image below
The film is set in 18th-century China, during the Qing dynasty, in the freezing northeastern part of the country. At the time, this was still largely unexplored frontier territory. An armed criminal flees into the snow-covered wilderness, while a wanted poster offering a reward for his capture has already been put up at an important mountain pass. In a remote, snowbound ravine (as the title suggests), the fugitive and two other strangers bump into each other around a campfire. One is a herbalist, the other a government official searching for the criminal – essentially a kind of sheriff. Whether they really are who they claim to be, however, is not immediately clear.
The three men eye each other with suspicion, not least because they come from different backgrounds and speak different languages: only two of them can understand each other at any given time. But friendly conversation is hardly on the agenda. Each suspects the others of being wanted fugitives, while mistrust and greed increasingly poison their encounter. All three are trying to turn the situation to their own advantage. When tensions finally erupt, prejudice, mutual suspicion and self-interest become a potentially deadly combination. Yet the real danger is lurking somewhere else entirely.
Director Ao Ran studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of the Central University for Nationalities before enrolling in the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy. For many years, he worked in film architecture and production design. In 2017, he directed the short fiction film “Four-Year-Old Hai Liu Ma”. By 2023, he had also made several ethnographic documentaries, including a film on shamanism, “The Call of Yadgen”. His interest in these subjects is also evident in “Chill Ravine”.
The film’s official genre classification – Western, Action and Mystery – may seem unusual, but it is remarkably apt. Ao Ran deliberately eschews psychological subtlety and metaphor, opting instead for raw physicality and emotional intensity. Set in a godforsaken, unforgiving landscape, the film demands a great deal from its three performers, E Yufeng, Nuomin Dalai and Ren Xiaoyao, even within its relatively brief running time.
The costume design by Sun Qian, the production design and the striking sound design all contribute to the film’s archaic atmosphere, as does Liang Chao’s rugged, refreshingly direct cinematography. Echoes of great classic Westerns, particularly those set in the snow, are unmistakable – Sergio Corbucci’s “The Great Silence” immediately comes to mind. Ao Ran is currently developing his first feature film, and it will be interesting to see what he comes up with.