Event

Mountain Patrol

Based on real-life events a decade ago in Kekexili (pronounced Cur-cur-shee-lee) national park, this stunning "Tibetan Western" is set on the Himalayan plains at 20,000 feet. Poachers, most of them desperately poor local farmers, have reduced the Tibetan antelope, prized for it's pelt, from a million strong to a few thousand. The Mountain Patrol, a band of unpaid and ill-equipped local men, led by Ri Tai, take on the dangerous task of tackling the poachers. Some of the poachers get away and Ri Tai decides to pursue his and leads his dwindiling band of men on a chase that rapidly comes to seem suicidal. This epic tale of men battling against the elements, clearly filmed in the most adverse conditions with a nonprofessional cast, gives you a taste of the wild Tibetan plateau like no other film ever made. Lu smartly minimizes the need for exposition by using the figure of a visiting Beijing photo-journalist as the audience-surrogate. The reports filed by his real-life prototype helped goad the Chinese government into policing the area.