By When reviewing foreign films, I try not to be too harsh on certain comedic sensibilities as I’m whiter than Wonder Bread. It’s pretty obvious that I won’t know the full context behind certain gags or why foreign audiences are drawn to particular styles of humor. That’s one of the reasons I engage with foreign media so often: I would like to at least have a surface-level understanding of how cinema differs across language barriers and varying customs.
That said, a film like Deep in the Mountains defies that sort of approach. The main claim to fame with this film is that it is directed by Li Yongyi, Zhang Yimou’s former editor, who worked with him on Cliff Walkers and Full River Red. He clearly knows how to cut a movie and build up tension and conflict over sustained periods. Why, then, does Deep in the Mountains feel like the first time he’s ever worked with film?
I suppose that’s a bit hyperbolic, as it’s not the technical aspects that drag Deep in the Mountains down. It’s not even the acting. It’s really just how the story is structured and how the juxtaposition of different tones drags down what could have been a decent horror film.
Deep in the Mountains
Director: Li Yongyi
Release Date: April 28, 2025 (BIFF), July 26, 2025 (NYAFF)
Country: China
The descriptions given to various film festivals for Deep in the Mountains are technically true, but they belie how the film plays out. Taking place in the 1990s in rural China, the story follows the exploits of checkpoint officer Yao Sichen (Qiao Shan) as he investigates the disappearance of a woman from years prior. The film enters his life at a point where he’s inspecting a driver’s truck before the driver heads off to Maniao River Village. Letting him off with a warning instead of fining him for faulty fog lights, Yao asks the driver to be on the lookout for that missing woman and then sends him on his way.
Days later, a routine checkup from CID sees Yao coming under fire for trying to help the driver. His co-worker reprimands him for not fining the guy, and the story sets up how Yao simply wants to help. He might be an officer of the law, but that doesn’t mean he stops being human. After arguing for a bit, Yao steps out to return to his work and notices something funny on another truck driver’s rig: it has the same fog light covering from the driver he let go days prior. Is he missing now, too?
Running concurrently to this is a story of driver Yang Zhaowei (Pan Binlong) and his daughter, Yang Ge (Li Haofei). Yang has taken his daughter along with him on deliveries for a heartbreaking reason: he’s dying of cancer and doesn’t have long to live. He doesn’t tell her this, instead using the opportunity to simply talk to her, but his plight is wrought with sadness from the get-go. Yao eventually inspects Yang’s truck and sends him on his way, which happens to be to Maniao River Village. As you can guess, trouble brews, and Yang eventually goes missing.
© Beijing Helios Film Co.
Now, that’s all a fine setup to a film. Your mind is likely going towards Maniao as some demented rural colony of killers that capture citizens for nefarious reasons. That’s what I thought was happening at first, especially since the opening segments are intercut with scenes of violence from people living there. I half expected this to be a Chinese take on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but that isn’t what plays out. Instead of crafting a serious horror film, Li Yongyi has instead opted to go for a black comedy that totally undermines whatever tension and drama he was working towards in the beginning.
I don’t want to give away any more of the plot, but once the film shifts into its second act, which plays out almost exclusively in Maniao River Village, it becomes closer to Ready or Not than traditional horror. Ready or Not never marketed itself as a serious film, but the sudden tonal shift here is very off-putting. I know I’ve praised Hong Kong films in the past for having disparate themes mixed together, but those movies would always return to their core idea instead of abandoning it altogether.
One of the bigger issues with Deep in the Mountains is that it doesn’t trust the audience to put the pieces together. When Yang goes missing, we see him get assaulted by Ge Wenyong (Wang Yanhui), so you already know who the culprit is. I know other murder mystery films have pulled a similar stunt, but those films are typically set from the killer’s perspective as they try to evade capture or they utilize that knowledge to dig into deeper societal/structural issues. Deep in the Mountains, instead, shifts gears to becoming something of an ensemble movie and introduces all kinds of wacky characters who have the flimsiest of connections to one another.
© Beijing Helios Film Co.
That’s where I go back to comparing this with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Deep in the Mountains very clearly is trying to paint Maniao River Village as some kind of hillbilly breeding ground, but there’s never truly a motivation given to its characters. Everyone is scrambling to appease the town council that is coming tomorrow morning, but that doesn’t explain why one guy is killing travelers and hiding their corpses in a cave. The story almost forgets that it was setting up a different angle and just becomes… a really lousy comedy?
Now, from the little bit of information I could find online, this story might be based on the real-life events of Gao Chengyong. Known as “Chinese Jack the Ripper,” the man is reported to have killed 11 women between 1988 and 2002. When Deep in the Mountains ends, it presents a text crawl that attempts to frame the events as a true crime story, so my first thought was to look and see if this was one. There’s no evidence to suggest any of this, but Gao’s name is pretty close to Ge Wenyong, so it could be mimicking The Texas Chainsaw Massacre there.
What I don’t appreciate is that such an infamous man is played for a joke. I’m not saying Li Yongyi should have treated Gao with reverence, but why are you taking an idea as brutal as “rape and murder” and crafting a series of awkward and goofy situations around it? It’s so bizarre to go from a story focused on solving the mystery of disappearing people to watching some short, bespectacled woman argue with the village chief about how to trick everyone into listening to her. There are even bizarre musical cues that pull from Peking opera and hip-hop, which is totally at odds with the dark visuals and generally somber atmosphere.
© Beijing Helios Film Co.
I know horror-comedy is a cult favorite subgenre and can even be used to explore uncomfortable material in a digestible way, but Deep in the Mountains doesn’t seem to go for that style other than to be a little off-kilter. I know I don’t always agree with Cantonese comedy in Hong Kong films, but I don’t even know what to call this. Chinese comedy is not this broad and devoid of setup and punchlines.
I could be ragging on this film for a bit, but I hope I’ve gotten my point across. The acting, in general, is serviceable, though I do think Qiao Shan gives a solid performance as a cop on the brink of just flipping out. Li Haofei is also pretty good as the distraught daughter, but she’s given such sloppy material to work with that even she can’t elevate things. At least the editing is competent, with scenes flowing together well enough and some solid cinematography on display, though everything is bathed in an ugly green coloring.
Far be it from me to claim that Deep in the Mountains is an abject failure, but when the director comes from the pedigree of working with Zhang Yimou, I think audiences are right in expecting more. Maybe I simply don’t understand such heavy contrasting of tones, but whatever the case, Deep in the Mountains failed to convince me it was the right approach.
