A filmmaker's real-life drama

Jiang Wen is China's closest equivalent to Stanley Kubrick or Orson Welles. And he keeps astounding an audience that seems to show a growing aversion for surprises, Raymond Zhou writes.

Most film stories have a three-act structure, and Jiang Wen's new work had run through two of the acts by the time it opened.

First, it encountered a high-profile hurdle when it failed to receive the official green light and had to go through some last-minute revisions. This won him enormous public sympathy.