Datong

There's no need to travel more than 6,000 miles to Datong, Shanxi to know that the life of a politician is mostly filled with accusations, confrontations, and pure misery. However, the life of Mayor Geng Yanbo is much more stressful than your average American politician since his plan to relocate 500,000 citizens in the name of cleaning out his town (the most polluted city in China due to coal-mining) is met with much hostility. Director Hao Zhou paints a portrait of an individual who appears to want to serve his community with the best of intentions. But moving 30% of the city's population is bound to spark a resistance, especially when there are already issues with the newly constructed housing projects. Along with tracking multiple stray dogs trotting through heaps of garbage, Zhou provides the opposition an opportunity to share their stories and one can only wince at the heartbreaking loss many of these victims are facing. Yanbo may believe you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, but how many eggs have to be broken before the omelet is doing more damage than good. In regards to this case, T.S. Eliot's quote is quite fitting with, "Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions." -Jimmy Martin

This is a film about the implementation of new policies by the mayor of a poor city in China. The story takes place in Datong, Shanxi, China, a city famous for coal mining. As a heavy industrial city, its environmental pollution is serious and the quality of life of the people has been low for a long time , economic development is almost stagnant, under this background, Mayor Geng decided to start his grand blueprint.

He was determined to use Datong as the capital of the ancient Northern Wei Dynasty to develop tourism projects with a famous historical and cultural city. For this reason, he decided to demolish most of the residential houses in the main urban area. In the process, he encountered many hardships and many residents were displaced. And in the government's black box management process, a large number of people have suffered.

Under his long-term insistence on borrowing heavily, Datong was developing in a better direction, but he was soon transferred from this post, perhaps due to promotion or other horizontal transfers, and many construction projects in Datong became unfinished. Project.

This is a film that reflects many social problems in China. It was filmed around 2011. It is a documentary that does not exist in the mainland. Several problems are mainly reflected in this documentary.

The administrative efficiency of the Chinese government is low and the transparency is extremely low. It can be seen that although the mayor tried his best to promote this project, in the process, the secretary of the municipal party committee and the construction company have benefited greatly from it. A large number of ordinary people have not been properly resettled. Become a victim of urban transformation. Although the film hopes to portray the mayor as a diligent mayor for the people, it also exposes that under China's current political system, even the seemingly powerful position of the mayor , it is still difficult to accomplish some things.

I love how this documentary is about the poor, it has the texture of a Jia Zhangke film, even though the film is rough and out of focus, it still has value.

I went to this city on 2019. It has many good tourism attractions. It's pity the reform and investment doesn't receive its full result. This documentary should trigger different reviews in western and eastern world. I was shocked to see how huge investment decisions were made and enforced. And starts to understand a bit more on how the politics machine runes in Itt level. The director and mayor made this movie very unique, one of a kind with many close shots and one on one chats. I hope to see another one like this.

The party got its prime through vigorous reform and rooted from base of society, then it became its own Goliath and everybody must chose like Di Yan Bo, mayor of Da Tong city.