To Kill a Mongolian Horse

To Kill a Mongolian Horse (Chinese: 一匹白馬的熱夢) is a 2024 drama film directed and written by Jiang Xiaoxuan in her feature film debut. Set in Inner Mongolia and produced by Da Huang Pictures, the film is a co-production between Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and the United States. It stars Saina, a horseback performer and first-time actor, playing himself, and explores his struggle between adhering to traditions as a horseback performer and embracing contemporary society.
The film had its world premiere in competition for the Giornate degli Autori at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 1 September 2024. It received two nominations in the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards, including a nomination for Best Film.
The film centers on a local horseback performer Saina, who is caught between embracing a social life in contemporary society and its economic opportunities or adhering to the traditions that have been passed down through generations.
Director Jiang Xiaoxuan grew up in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, where her father was a horse breeder. After graduating from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Jiang began working on her debut film, setting it against her upbringing and reflecting on the integral role of horses in Inner Mongolian culture. She was inspired by her friend Saina, a local horseback performer who pursued this career for income, and found both his story and her experiences at the horse fair captivating, where performers showcased and celebrated traditional notions of Mongolian masculinity and ethnic identity. She compared the costumes and makeup that the performers donned to heroic figures, likening them to Marvel superheroes putting on their armor. More than half of the story is based on actual events that Jiang witnessed or was told by Saina, who portrayed himself in the film. Jiang noted that the film did not follow a conventional three-act structure; instead, she aimed to document real living conditions, believing that not every action of the characters needed to have a specific meaning or lead to a particular outcome, allowing the audience to experience another person's world.
The film was presented at the Asian Project Market in October 2023, where it won the VIPO Award and the Sørfond Award, as well as at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in March 2024. With a total budget of USD$320,000, Jiang explained that they did not deliberately join many project markets, attending only a few that were convenient in terms of timing, describing the funding they managed to secure as "a matter of luck". The film was produced by Da Huang Pictures as a co-production between Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and the United States. While fine-tuning the screenplay, Jiang participated in an online workshop hosted by Malaysian filmmaker Tan Chui Mui, who was impressed with the project and came on board as the film's executive producer. Pre-production and filming took less than a year before the film entered competition at the Venice International Film Festival, with post-production still ongoing when the production team set off for the festival.
Principal photography lasted about twenty days, with Tao Kio Qiu serving as the cinematographer, having previously collaborated with Jiang on her short film Graveyard of Horses (2022). Several crew members from Graveyard of Horses also reunited, including editor Zhong Zheng and the sound designer. Most of the shooting took place outdoors, utilizing drones. During the early stages of filming, Saina suffered a fall during a shoot, but it did not hinder his participation, and the scene was retained in the film, which Jiang described as "a defining moment" that "[enriches] the film's emotional landscape". Jiang identified a scene shot during a significant snowstorm as the most challenging, as the temperature was so low that even Saina, who was born and raised in the region, struggled to endure it.
The film features six horseback performance scenes intertwined with the dramatic narrative, with Jiang noting that these scenes serve both to showcase horsemanship skills and to advance the story. She views horseback performances as an art form that can resonate with audiences and aimed to convey subjective emotions, rather than presenting them objectively or anthropologically. All horseback performance scenes were planned by Jiang and Qiu in advance using storyboards, but the placement of these scenes within the film underwent many adjustments during post-production, as the crew found the story was not particularly linear, allowing for various possibilities to incorporate the horseback performances.
To Kill a Mongolian Horse had its world premiere in competition for the Giornate degli Autori at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 1 September 2024. Distribution rights were acquired by Pluto Film prior to its Venice premiere. It was subsequently screened at the 24th Belfast Film Festival, the 29th Busan International Film Festival, the 2024 Red Sea International Film Festival, the 36th Palm Springs International Film Festival, and the 20th Osaka Asian Film Festival. The film also competed for the Golden Cyclo at the 31st Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema, where it received a special mention from the jury, and is scheduled to compete for the Firebird Awards at the 49th Hong Kong International Film Festival.
Allan Hunter of Screen International described To Kill a Mongolian Horse as an "elegiac first feature" that is "immersed in the testing landscapes and traditions of Mongolia", exploring the poignant struggles of a herdsman against a changing world through Jiang Xiaoxuan's "assured" storytelling and cinematographer Tao Kio Qiu's "vibrant spectacle", ultimately earning accolades for its emotional depth and visual richness. Matthew Joseph Jenner of the International Cinephile Society gave the film 4/5 stars, also describing it as an "impressive" directorial debut that seamlessly blends traditional Western themes with contemporary sensibilities, offering a profound and visually striking examination of masculinity and the search for belonging amidst conflicting worlds. Gautaman Bhaskaran of Arab News praised the film for "brilliantly" capturing the progress and modernism within traditional Mongolian herdsman culture through the touching story of Saina and Tao Kio Qiu's "impressive framing", delivering a gripping narrative that highlights the protagonist's emotional turmoil.