Mountain Patrol: Kekexili: Critic Reviews

Based on depressingly true events, Mountain Patrol: Kekexili tracks the heroic efforts of a small group of Tibetans struggling to keep the Tibetan antelope from extinction.

The most crucial element of Mountain Patrol's success is Duo's portrayal of Ri Tai, a tough, terse hero who could have sprung fully formed from the imagination of Akira Kurosawa or Sergio Leone.

Never has a movie so soberingly made the fight to save life and the struggle to hold on to it seem so futile.

For better or worse, no film of the last decade, not even Malick's The New World, has displayed such a ferocious intimacy with extreme landscape.

Instead of a laudable ecological crusade, the film feels more like a futile Captain Ahab obsession, with patrol leader Ri Tai (Duobujie) vainly chasing a poaching kingpin through the harsh, windy wilderness.

What is remarkable is that this film is based on a true story, and filmed on the actual locations.

A nomadic life-and-death struggle evoking classic Hollywood western themes of dogged honor and rugged idealism.

Breathtakingly beautiful, breathtakingly brutal and simply breathtaking.

An epic story of white-knuckle tension in a setting of harsh, unearthly beauty, it's the kind of story Hemingway might have told if he'd made it to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Exquisite to behold and with a stimulating storyline that mixes guns with ecological consciousness.

The stunning adventure Mountain Patrol: Kekexili is like a John Ford western set, not in the master's beloved Monument Valley, but in remotest China.

Director Lu Chuan took his lumps by filming the movie on location in an inhospitable locale, but his decision to do so is validated by the final result.

This second film by Chinese director Lu Chuan is a solid and atmospheric drama.

Being in this pitiless environment stiffens the spine of the film's tale.

An ode to the great sacrifices that often accompany the will to do the right thing.

Moby Dick with a progressive spin.

One of those films that opens eyes to distant lands and problems and yet carries a sense of drama and a humane moral tone that conveys an appeal that's simultaneously exotic and universal.

The film's most memorable visual spectacle, of a man getting sucked into a pool of quicksand, is also the most resonant. Man may think he rules over nature, but it can take him back at any moment.