blind shaft. chinese early 00s film about two con artists who hatch a scheme to get money out of mining site managers.
you could compare it to something like dirty rotten scoundrels (cant think of any other con men films from hollywood right now). except what they do is pretty fucked up and this looks like a grim socio realist film but actually isnt grim to watch even if the two characters are obv not great people. but even then, you dont totally hate them. and there is a very weird sort of skewedly humorous tone to it (or maybe its just me, as i found these two guys appetite for blowing their money on whores a bit amusing; also has a funny karaoke scene, made me think a bit of the jia zhangke pickpocket film), that never becomes blackly comic or whatever people tend to say about this kind of setup, theres just something a bit off about it all, which made me strangely glued to the screen to see where it goes. also has a brill performance by one of their victims who is this poor, naive, slightly dopey teenager.
was expecting something drab and a bit of a slog, but instead, it was incredibly tight, and shows you that not all socio realist films have to be drab and grey.