The Black Cannon Incident (1985)

Original title

黑炮事件

Directed by

Huang Jianxin

Genre

comedy drama

Country

People's Republic of China

Runtime

1h 36m

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 27 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A mining engineer who likes to play chess by himself sends a telegram about a missing chess piece. The authorities suspect it is a code and reassign him. An unqualified interpreter takes over and causes a costly mistake.

satiricalparanoidabsurddryly comictensesuspensefulcerebralbleakly humorous

What happens

The Black Cannon Incident (Chinese: 黑砲事件; pinyin: Hēi Pào Shìjiàn) is a 1985 Chinese black comedy film satirizing the bureaucracy and paranoia of the Chinese authorities. Presented by Xi'an Film Studio and directed by Huang Jianxin, it stars Gao Ming, Gerhard Olschewski, and Liu Zifeng. The film was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. In the film, a mining engineer has the hobby of playing Chinese chess alone. After a chess piece mysteriously vanishes, he sends a telegram about searching for a missing cannon. The authorities mistake the telegram for a cryptic message, and re-assign the engineer. While the case is being investigated, an inexperienced interpreter is asked to replace the engineer in his contact with a German specialist. A mistranslation by the inept replacement leads to a faulty test run and to financial loss for the mining company. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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