An Elephant Sitting Still

An Elephant Sitting Still is set in a bleak city in northern China, where word has it that a circus elephant in Manzhouli simply sits and ignores the world around it. That rumour becomes an escape route for four people whose lives are already breaking down. A confrontation between two teenage boys at a school sets off a chain of events that pulls a student, his classmate, a pensioner and a small-time criminal together, drawing pursuit from family members and others as they drift toward the idea of buying a ticket to Manzhouli.

The film was written and directed by Hu Bo, working from his own screenplay, and produced by Wang Xiaoshuai, Dongyan Fu and Xuan Liu through Dongchun Films. It runs 230 minutes and mixes crime and drama, following its characters through a single, slowly unfolding stretch of time. The large credited cast of 47 includes Peng Yuchang as Wei Bu, Wang Yuwen as Huang Ling, Zhang Yu as Yu Cheng, Li Congxi as Wang Jin, Zhenghui Ling as Li Kai and Xiaolong Zhang as Yu Shuai. It was made for roughly 3 million USD.

Released in December 2018, the film drew a strong critical response, with a critics' rating of 8.4 out of 10 from 51 reviews, higher than the 7.8 out of 10 it holds on IMDb from about 9,200 votes and its 7.7 out of 10 on TMDB from around 241 votes. The relatively small budget and the substantial vote count on IMDb indicate a film that reached a wide international audience despite its length.