# Mountains May Depart (山河故人)
**Mountains May Depart** (山河故人) is a 2015 Chinese drama film written and directed by [Jia Zhangke](https://www.edgepedia.org/jia-zhangke), told in three parts set in 1999, 2014, and 2025, following a love triangle in the coal-mining town of Fenyang, Shanxi, and its consequences across a quarter century of Chinese social change[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mountains_may_depart). It premiered in competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and was released in mainland China on 30 October 2015[2](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1393228) • [3](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2026-01/14/content_38534926.htm).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and writer | Jia Zhangke, his eighth feature film[3](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2026-01/14/content_38534926.htm) |
| Structure | Three chapters set in 1999, 2014, and 2025, moving from Fenyang to Australia[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mountains_may_depart) |
| Principal cast | Zhao Tao (Shen Tao), Zhang Yi (Zhang Jinsheng), Liang Jingdong (Liangzi), Dong Zijian (Dollar), Sylvia Chang (Mia)[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mountains_may_depart_2016) |
| Aspect ratios | 4:3 (1.33:1) for 1999, 16:9 (1.85:1) for 2014, and a 2.35:1 widescreen ratio for 2025[5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html) |
| Awards | 2015 Cannes competition film; Golden Horse Award for Best Original Screenplay; Asian Film Award for Best Screenplay[6](https://www.j-ent.com.tw/tw/films/jm-160-1) |
| Mainland box office | Over 30 million yuan, breaking Jia's previous mainland box-office record[3](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2026-01/14/content_38534926.htm) |
| Tenth-anniversary re-release | 12 December 2025, when the film's imagined 2025 coincided with the present[7](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6930027ae4b0377c883a17e5.html) |
## Spoilers
### Story
The first chapter, set in Fenyang in 1999, centers on Shen Tao (Zhao Tao), a shop assistant and dance instructor courted by two childhood friends: Zhang Jinsheng (Zhang Yi), a newly rich entrepreneur in the coal and oil business, and Liangzi (Liang Jingdong), a coal miner whose livelihood is shrinking as coal prices fall[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mountains_may_depart_2016) • [8](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/23/mountains-may-depart/). Tao chooses to marry the wealthier Jinsheng; the heartbroken Liangzi leaves town, throwing away his house keys as he goes[5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html). Tao and Jinsheng have a son, Zhang Daole, whose name echoes the English word "Dollar"[2](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1393228).
The 2014 chapter shows the costs of that choice. Tao and Jinsheng are divorced, and seven-year-old Dollar lives with his father, distant from his mother[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mountains_may_depart). Liangzi returns to Fenyang with his wife and child, his lungs ruined by years of mine work, and asks Tao for help paying for treatment; she visits his home and provides the money[9](https://cinemien.nl/downloads/movie/11612/6430_persmap.pdf). Tao's father dies suddenly, and Jinsheng prepares to take Dollar to Australia[5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html). On a slow green train taking the boy to Shanghai, Tao gives him the key to her house, telling him the train is slow so she can keep him longer[5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html).
The final chapter is set in Australia in 2025. Nineteen-year-old Dollar, raised in English, no longer speaks Chinese and can barely communicate with his now bankrupt father[10](https://www.taia.tw/taoyuanff/doc/tyff.pdf). The only Chinese word he retains is "Tao", meaning wave, without knowing it is also his mother's name[10](https://www.taia.tw/taoyuanff/doc/tyff.pdf). He begins a relationship with his older Chinese-language teacher Mia (Sylvia Chang), a Hong Kong-born migrant raised in Toronto, and through her lessons gradually recalls his mother[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mountains_may_depart_2016) • [11](https://www.mediaversityreviews.com/film-reviews/2017/4/12/mountains-may-depart). In the closing scene, he intends to take Mia on a flight to China to see his mother, though the reunion itself is never depicted.[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mountains_may_depart) In the closing scene Tao dances alone in falling snow to the [Pet Shop Boys](https://www.edgepedia.org/pet-shop-boys)' "Go West", the same song that opened the film[5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html).
## Form and structure
**Three aspect ratios.** Each chapter uses a different screen ratio: 4:3 (1.33:1) for 1999, 16:9 (1.85:1) for 2014, and 2.35:1 for 2025, so the frame widens as the characters' world expands[5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html). Chinese commentary linked the three ratios to three media eras, the DV television age, the widescreen film age, and the digital super-widescreen age[12](https://media.people.com.cn/n1/2016/1212/c408562-28943251.html). A 2025 academic study read the progressive widening through the Northern Song painter [Guo Xi](https://www.edgepedia.org/guo-xi)'s "Three Distances" theory and Zhuangzi's idea of the wandering mind, arguing the ratios carry traditional Chinese aesthetics into modern film language[13](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART003272504).
**Recurring symbols.** Commentators cataloged a set of motifs that recur across the three periods: the [Yellow River](https://www.edgepedia.org/yellow-river), the Wenfeng Pagoda, keys, dumplings, the songs "Zhen Zhong" (Farewell) by Sally Yeh and "Go West", a gun, and trains[2](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1393228) • [5](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html). Jia himself described the film's subject as *qingyi*, the Chinese pairing of emotional affection (*qing*) with bonds of loyalty and obligation (*yi*); in his native Shanxi usage, *yi*, the commitment that survives even when affection fades, is what remains between Tao and Liangzi when he returns ill[9](https://cinemien.nl/downloads/movie/11612/6430_persmap.pdf).
The English title translates a Chinese saying, "Mountains may depart, but emotions stay the same"[8](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/23/mountains-may-depart/).
## Reception
The film divided critics from its Cannes premiere onward. Admirers saw it as a summation of Jia's two decades of concern with ordinary lives amid epochal change; critics found the characters reduced to mouthpieces for the film's structure and its sociological symbols[2](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1393228). Reviewers repeatedly singled out the 2025 chapter as the weakest, citing the English-language dialogue and the age-gap romance, while praising Zhao Tao's performance as the film's emotional anchor[14](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mountains-may-depart-2016) • [15](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/film/film-review-mountains-may-depart-66502/amp/). On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 89% Tomatometer score from 87 reviews[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mountains_may_depart_2016).
In mainland China the film earned over 30 million yuan, at that time Jia's best commercial result and a counterexample to the assumption that art films cannot find audiences[3](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2026-01/14/content_38534926.htm).
## The 2025 re-release
On 12 December 2025, the film returned to mainland cinemas for its tenth anniversary, timed so that the third chapter's imagined 2025 coincided with the actual year[7](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6930027ae4b0377c883a17e5.html). The re-release included a "Mountain River Post Office" campaign: 50,000 commemorative gift sets containing a postcard to be sealed for ten years and a ticket for a hypothetical 2035 screening, extending what promoters called the film's "ten-year appointment"[7](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6930027ae4b0377c883a17e5.html). At anniversary screenings Jia told audiences that a longer cut with new material might appear in 2035[16](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_32171645). Clips of Tao's snow dance and the green-train farewell circulated widely on short-video platforms during the re-release[3](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2026-01/14/content_38534926.htm).
## References
1. [Mountains May Depart, The Science Fiction Encyclopedia](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mountains_may_depart)
2. [《山河故人》：中国电影"热钱"时代，无人可以不被裹挟, 澎湃新闻](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1393228)
3. [《山河故人》：影像创造启发时代对话, 中国艺术报 via 光明网](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2026-01/14/content_38534926.htm)
4. [Mountains May Depart, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mountains_may_depart_2016)
5. [《山河故人》复映，保利影城邀您续写"十年之约", 保利影业](https://www.polyfilm.cn/newsinfo/10871135.html)
6. [山河故人, 佳映娛樂](https://www.j-ent.com.tw/tw/films/jm-160-1)
7. [贾樟柯《山河故人》复映定档12月12日, 北京日报客户端](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6930027ae4b0377c883a17e5.html)
8. [From Cannes: "Shan He Gu Ren" ("Mountains May Depart") Beautiful but Flawed, The Harvard Crimson](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/23/mountains-may-depart/)
9. [Jia Zhangke press kit interview, Cinemien](https://cinemien.nl/downloads/movie/11612/6430_persmap.pdf)
10. [桃園電影節開幕片《山河故人》場刊](https://www.taia.tw/taoyuanff/doc/tyff.pdf)
11. [Mountains May Depart, Mediaversity Reviews](https://www.mediaversityreviews.com/film-reviews/2017/4/12/mountains-may-depart)
12. [试析《山河故人》的文本及后电影文化产业意义, 人民网传媒](https://media.people.com.cn/n1/2016/1212/c408562-28943251.html)
13. [From 'Sanyuan' to 'Youxin': On the Traditional Aesthetic Construction in the Aspect Ratio Transformations of Mountains May Depart, Asia Film Studies (KCI)](https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART003272504)
14. [Mountains May Depart movie review, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mountains-may-depart-2016)
15. [Film Review: Mountains May Depart, The London Economic](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/film/film-review-mountains-may-depart-66502/amp/)
16. [《山河故人》十周年重映，贾樟柯：再过十年还想剪个长版本, 澎湃新闻](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_32171645)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2015 to 2019 › Drama films 2015 and 2016 › Released in 2015*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license