Mountain Patrol (2004)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Absolutely brilliant

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Filmed on location in some of the harshest terrain, Kekexili is a film for lovers of great cinematography, animals, the environment, and Tibet. I don't often give 10's for my reviews, but then I don't often run across a movie as great as this.Kekexili is basically a Tibetan western. The Tibetan Antelope have been hunted mercilessly for their pelts which bring good prices for poachers. A group of barely paid citizen volunteers get together and for about 3 years patrol the mountains to try and catch poachers. The men carry machine guns and give plenty of warning shots because their unsanctioned job is to fine or arrest, not to kill the poachers. This is admirable, considering the lack of support from most everyone else and the fact the poachers have no problem killing the patrolmen and do.A Chinese reporter from Beijing accompanies the patrol to various cold, barren locales in the mountains. Some of what he finds along the way seems contradictory to what he originally felt the patrol stood for: occasionally they sold the pelts they confiscate to get money for their provisions when they don't have enough money themselves(or if one of their number gets shot by a poacher). A great quote from the patrol captain was something along the lines of "Have you seen the prostrators on their pilgrimage? Their faces and hands are filthy, but their hearts are pure." Animal lovers will have a love-hate relationship with this film as some animals are actually killed. And the scene where the patrolmen find literally dozens of carcasses, stripped of their pelts by men and their flesh and internal organs by hordes of vultures, is difficult to watch. They haul the dead antelope bodies to a pit and burn them. The clacking of their bones as they are hauled over the earth is quite unsettling, like a deathly wind chime.For the most part, the Tibetan actors are amateurs, but it works unbelievably well. The landscape will take your breath away just as quickly as it did for the patrolmen when they began to get bloody noses from the high altitudes. The film crew had a grueling time with this film; one member was killed in a car accident. Unforgiving climates, harsh and unvegetated terrain, and miles and miles with no towns...it's quite a spectacle, like a frozen desert.I don't want to spoil too much of the plot, but don't look for a happy ending, unless you're an antelope.

Let's get the title correct first. The characters pronounce "Kekexili" as "Ko-Ko-Schee- Lee", and we are told it means beautiful mountains. Kekexili follows Ga Yu, a Beijing journalist as he travels with the Mountain Patrol, a civilian group under the command of a man named Ritai who are determined to stop poachers from hunting "chiru", a nearly extinct Tibetan Antelope that is valued for their soft pelts.The Mountain Patrol is not officially recognized by the Chinese government, so their actions are quasi-legal, but they do have the power to confiscate illegal antelope pelts and to administer cash fines to anyone caught with the pelts. If the Mountain Patrol can catch poachers in the act, they can bring down the full weight of the Chinese government to arrest these criminals. We go with the Mountain Patrol on this particular mission and we experience all the hardship, danger and troubles that they experience.As Ritai's group tracks the poachers we see the after effects of their poaching. One scene shows a valley full of skinned antelope carcasses left to rot in the sun, now nothing more than food for vultures. In another, Ritai comes upon a group of men who work for the poachers as skinners. These are just poor Chinese workers trying to eke out a living. They know it's illegal to kill the antelope, but they have only been hired to skin already dead animals; so where's the illegality in that?Ritai however, is not very sympathetic. He confiscates their pelts and slaps the men with a large fine. But Ritai thinks he may be able to get to the big boss poacher through these skinners, so he "arrests" these men, has them handcuffed and loaded onto one of his trucks. Our journalist is clearly bothered by this incarceration of citizens by a group lacking any legal authority to do it, but his concerns are dismissed by Ritai. This will not be the last time we find ourselves in a moral gray zone.Since Ritai has incarcerated these dozen extra men, he is now responsible for feeding them. We now learn some bitter truths about this Mountain Patrol. The Mountain Patrol receives no state funding for salaries, supplies or anything else. They rely wholly on donations, which are notoriously small. In fact, none of Ritai's men have been paid for over a year. As Ritai's obsessive search continues, his food rations ebb and he is soon faced with a dilemma, who does he feed; his men or his prisoners?Ritai now decides he has to send one of his men back to get more supplies and Liu Dong is dispatched to drive back. Lui Dong tells Ritai that he has no money to buy supplies. Ritai tells him to use the money collected in fines. That won't be enough. Ritai thinks for a moment and then tells Liu Dong to sell off the confiscated Tibetan Antelope pelts on the Black Market. What? Is Ritai really going to sell the illegal antelope pelts in order to raise the funds needed to stop the poachers who also sell illegal antelope pelts? Apparently he is.On top of this, Ritai has decided to let the group of incarcerated skinners go because he can no longer take care of them. Some complain that they can't make it back to civilization and will probably die.Ritai's only comment, "If you don't make it, then it's your fate." This is pretty cold, if you ask me.With all the tribulations faced by the ever-weakened Mountain Patrol, the worst thing that could happen to them is exactly what does happen; they find the poachers. Unlike the weak, under-funded Mountain Patrol, the poachers are large in number, well fed and well supplied. The poacher boss asks Ritai why he is harassing him? Ritai says he is protecting HIS antelope. The poacher boss laughs; when did they become Ritai's property? The poacher boss offers to buy Ritai a house and two cars if he'll just stop pursuing him.Insulted that the poacher would even think of bribing him, Ritai punches the boss man and he is immediately fired upon. Ritai is hit in the abdomen and falls to the ground writhing in pain. The big boss now takes a rifle and pumps a half dozen more bullets into Ritai to put him out of his misery. But Ga Yu, our frightened Beijing journalist is not killed. In fact, the poachers show him far more courtesy and humanity than Ritai's group ever showed him.No wonder this film made me queasy. I was both impressed and frightened by the self-righteous anger that seemed to motivate Ritai and his men. And, while Ritai's goals were laudable, his methods for achieving them were questionable. Once Ritai began illegally selling the antelope pelts for operating funds, he crossed a very serious line. But contradictions like that are not unknown among some animal rights groups. Consider PETA, which is opposed to all types of animal testing for medical research, yet their vice president, Mary Beth Sweetland is a diabetic who uses insulin made from animal products to keep her alive.She publicly admits this but says; "I don't see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals." So, life saving medicine that she would deny to ten million other diabetics is OK for her because SHE is devoted to saving animals. One usually has to reach into the realm of politics to uncover such monumental hypocrisy.As Kekexili ends, we are informed that beginning in 2001, the Chinese government disbanded the civilian Mountain Patrol and formed its own anti-poaching unit.

'Kekexili Mountain Patrol' is the true story of actions taken in the pursuit of, and against, antelope smuggling in Tibet in the 1990s. In its favour, the film contains plenty of stunning Tibetan scenery to view, and an interesting portrait of life in difficult times. On the other hand, the acting (from a largely amateur cast) and the dialogue (especially) is often rudimentary and poor. Also of note is that the judgement of the group leader seems absurdly stupid - he drives hundreds of miles into the wilderness, before calculating that he doesn't have sufficient food or fuel to get back! This film has probably been over-praised (if judged purely as an artwork) by those with affinity for all things Tibetan. If you like mountains, you'll love it: but don't expect to see too much else.

*CONTAINS SPOILERS* this is a great movie unbiased in its accounts of its characters. also one of the earlier comments was that the movies ending was bad script saying that why would the captain go up to poachers armed with a single rifle, knowing that these poachers have killed one of his men earlier. the war between the poachers and the mountain patrol have been raging for years. the captain at the end mentioned "i have been chasing you for 3 years". basically if he didn't go up to them at the end of the movie, he knew he would of never have the same chance of catching them again. so disregarding his own life and safety, he rather capture them and risk his life, then to let them go and wait countless years before another opportunity. I'm guessing its more of a pride/symbolic representation in the script itself.