Fei cui zhi cheng

Director Midi Z was only five years old when his oldest brother abandoned the family, himself just sixteen at the time. There were rumours that he’d found riches in the mythical "City of Jade". The family only saw him again at the father's funeral in 1997 – poor and addicted to opium. Years later, by which time Midi Z had moved to Taiwan and become a film director, he was released from the Mandalay prison. Weak, but still hopeful of finding a big jade gemstone to become rich overnight, he set off once again for the mines, just like countless others in Myanmar's war-torn Kachin state on the border with China. Midi Z accompanied him with his camera, following him on his motorbike through the jungle, pushing ever further into the dangerous inner core of an inaccessible man's world. This is a place where heroes, adventurers and desperate souls live and toil, digging, drilling and searching for jade, hunted down by bands of soldiers and plagued by malaria, with opium spurring them as they pursue their dream of great wealth. Fei cui zhi cheng documents a moving cinematic attempt to bring two very different brothers closer together.