After discovering a sacred stone in the mouth of a deer he just killed, Taibei, a young lonesome Tibetan cowboy, embarks on a long and difficult mission: to bring it back to the holy mountain of Buddha's handprint. His journey turns sour as an obstinate woman, Joan, and a psychic yet dumb elf, Pu, soon decide to join him. Not to mention the two violent brothers on his tale, who are on a revenge quest.
Chinese director Zhang Yang eschews the thrill of propulsive duels for a discursive allegorical approach, serving up picturesque visuals, highland-dry humor, and karmic plot twists.
Striking widescreen shots of ochre deserts and verdant landscapes help blend the lines between magic realism and classic man-on-the-run format, if you have patience for the two-and-a-half-hour viewing to take it in.
A beguiling combination of Western and Buddhist parable, Zhang Yang's latest is a beautiful and thought-provoking work which suffers from being overlong and narratively unfocused.
Soul on a String has a modern Chinese epic feel, but has a quirky individuality that harks back to a time when Chinese and Hong Kong films had their own style, and not the mass-produced feel of so many of today's Hollywood tentpole films.