The Silver Lion for Best Director: Cai Shangjun

The Silver Lion for Best Director: Cai Shangjun

The Silver Lion award for best director was received by Shangjun Cai for his latest film ‘Ren Shan Ren Hai’ (People Mountain People Sea) at the Venice Film Festival yesterday.

Traditionally, the title of one film from the main competition is kept under wraps until the last moment. This year’s surprise addition happened to be ‘Ren Shan Ren Hai’, only the second film from Chinese director Cai. Set in the Guizhou Province of South-Western China, this revenge film is intriguingly based on real events which are said to have taken place just a few years ago. Returning to his run-down home village following a 10 year stint away, Lao Tie (played by Jianbin Chen) discovers his brother has been murdered by all round bad man Xiao (played by Wu Xiubo). In a seemingly typical vengeance tale, Lao sets about finding the killer and single-handedly bringing him to justice.

A trailer has turned up online which gives a taster of what to expect from this fairly violent and austere-looking drama.

Cai Shangjun (Chinese: 蔡尚君; pinyin: Cài Shàngjūn) is a Chinese film director and screenwriter. Cai graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in 1992. Since then, his major work has been that of a professional screenwriter. Cai was part of the team, along with Zhang Yang, Diao Yi'nan, and Liu Fendou, that co-wrote the screenplays for two of Zhang's films: Spicy Love Soup (1997) and Shower (1999). Cai also cowrote a script for Zhang's Sunflower (2005).

In 2007, Cai directed his first film, The Red Awn, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2007 Pusan International Film Festival.

In 2011, Cai won the Silver Lion for the best director at the 68th Venice International Film Festival with the film People Mountain People Sea.