Blind Shaft

Blind Shaft follows two men who work in China's illegal coal mines and earn their living by a grim scheme. They single out a lone job seeker, pass him off as a relative, and arrange for him to die in a cave-in; afterwards they collect compensation from the mine owner in exchange for keeping quiet about the "accident". Their latest target is a naive young man from the countryside who needs money for his family, and one of the two swindlers begins to waver as they prepare to go through with the plan.

The film is the debut feature of director Li Yang, who also wrote and produced it, and it draws on the world of unlicensed mines where poor laborers work in dangerous conditions for wages sent home. It stars Li Yixiang and Wang Shuangbao as the two con men, with Baoqiang Wang as the young man they take on, alongside Jing Ai, Bao Zhenjiang and Sun Wei.

Released in 2003 and running 92 minutes, Blind Shaft is a crime drama from Hong Kong and China. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.6 from roughly 3,100 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.5 from a much smaller base of about 70 votes. A critics' rating of 7.9 from around 40 reviews places it somewhat above both audience scores, indicating a film that reviewers have received at least as warmly as general viewers.