Yearender: Film critics' top 10 Chinese films of 2015

No 2: The Dead End

A screen capture of The Dead End. [Photo/Mtime]

Raymond Zhou: The script has its problems, but it is a bold attempt at extending the spectrum of films of its kind. The actors have performed well in telling the characters' minds.

Tan Fei: This is a powerful crime film. The plot was not perfectly logical, and characters were somewhat awkward, but this does not overshadow the film's quality at all.

Zhang Yan: Under the genre of crime films, The Dead End showed the complex dilemma and emotional turmoil that exist between the police and criminals, some of which have gone beyond social order and social identities. An interesting tension was created while solving the crime, paying for its price and salvation.

She Fan: Several illogical scenarios stopped the film from becoming a classic, but the rattling, violently conflicting, delicately warming and neatly woven threads of the storyline reflect the ingenuity of director Cao Baoping.

In brief: The film focuses on three friends who raise an orphan. One is a policeman, one a taxi driver and the third is a fisherman. Their lives change due to of an unsolved murder that happened several years earlier. Actor Deng Chao was nomianted for best actor at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards, China's equivalent to the Oscars.