ODYSSEY 2024: Ash is Purest White

Qiao, a gangster’s moll, spends five years in prison after taking the fall for boyfriend Bin.

Yet upon her release, she finds herself unceremoniously dumped, and the world around her has changed completely.

This film is not just a typical gangster story intertwining of love, betrayal and revenge, Zhangke Jia sets the story in the industrial city of Datong, Shanxi at the turn of the century, where rapid urbanisation fades the romance of the outlaw that haunts Qiao and Bin, replacing it with a colder and more realistic atmosphere.

Selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Jia adopts a tripartite structure, spanning three periods, to depict a transforming China through the eyes of woman.