Faced with dimin­ish­ing returns on his har­vest, a poor young farmer in Myan­mar pawns his cow for a moped and seeks alter­na­tive income as a taxi driver. Among his first fares is a woman who has returned home for her grandfather’s funer­al and is making a new start after escap­ing an arranged mar­riage in China. Togeth­er, they are lured into one of the few lucra­tive busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able in the area: sell­ing “ice poison” (crys­tal meth) around town.
With three fea­ture films under his belt, Burmese-Tai­wanese direc­tor, Midi Z, has devel­oped a nat­u­ral­is­tic cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage that allows a doc­u­men­tary-like inti­ma­cy with his char­ac­ters. In his latest work, he has craft­ed a mea­sured drama that bal­ances the daily hard­ships faced by many in Myan­mar with moments of joy shared by his characters—from the glow­ing neon lights of a karaoke bar to the free­dom of the open road, and the taint­ed promise of the drug that allows for a fleet­ing escape but threat­ens to con­tin­ue their cycle of pover­ty.  (Ian Hol­lan­der, Tribeca, NY)