When a woman’s body is discovered on the banks of a river near a small town in southern China, it’s up to police investigator Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong), working out of an abandoned cinema, to find the killer—but what at first appears to be an open-and-shut case turns out to be only the first layer of an ever deepening mystery, as Ma’s inquiry reveals the hidden life of the rural community. Based on Yu Hua’s short novel Mistakes by the River, Wei’s bleakly atmospheric tour-de-force neo-noir is laced with gallows humor and touches of the surreal, its grungy, low-contrast 16mm photography a hand in glove fit for its 1990s setting.

Watch the film here.