Ash Is Purest White (15)

In a bleak industrial city, young dancer Qiao (played by Zhangke’s long-time collaborator, Zhao Tao) falls in love with mobster Bin (Liao Fan). When Bin’s ballroom dancing-obsessed boss is killed, he takes on leadership of the ‘Jianghu’, a brotherhood of honourable criminals. But the old codes of honour are out of fashion, and when Bin is attacked by a new generation of gangsters, Qiao is forced to make a seismic choice. Invoking tragicomedy, melodrama, cosmic enquiry and references to Zhangke’s previous films, ravishingly photographed and utterly transporting, Ash Is Purest White is a magisterial work of epic scope, a fitting addition to Zhangke’s record of 21st century China and its continuing transformations.