This Timeworn Land — 流俗地

9.2

⠁ 01 · Based on a Novel

9.2

Douban Rating 黎紫书 · 流俗地

A landmark of contemporary Chinese literature
Li Zishu's most celebrated work

400K+

Copies sold (Chinese)

4

Chinese-language editions

3

Translations in progress

Published across mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. English, Korean, and Catalan rights sold — translations underway. Asian Weekly Top 10 Books of 2020.

Mainland China

Malaysia

Taiwan, China

Hong Kong, China

⠃ 02 · Vision

The private epic of a blind woman named Yinxia

Adapted from the acclaimed novel of the same name by Li Zishu, the film is set in a small tin-mining town in Malaysia, where fragile individuals come into collision with the indifference of fate. Memory and forgetting, life and death, reality and fantasy interweave across a layered, time-shifting structure — and through the flow of time, the private epic of Yinxia gradually comes into view.

03

⠉ 03 · Synopsis

In a small tin-mining town, an intimate dialogue across the boundary of life and death allows a woman to reclaim her own story.

In an abandoned apartment building in the small tin-mining town, Yinxia, a blind woman, encounters the ghost of a young girl. Through their intimate dialogue across the boundary between life and death, the story of Yinxia's life slowly begins to unfold across two timelines — the fearless young woman she once was, and the middle-aged woman struggling with unspoken trauma.

Surrounding Yinxia are others equally caught in the currents of fate — her childhood friend Xi Hui, the brilliant boy Raju. They struggle under the weight of gender, family, and social expectation. Some find no redemption; others arrive, belatedly, at a fragile and hard-earned dignity.

True freedom is not escaping the darkness —
but learning to move through it on your own terms.

⠙ 04 · Characters

Yinxia

Born blind, with an exceptional sense of hearing. Quietly ferocious. From a constrained young woman to one who reclaims her own story.

Xi Hui

Yinxia's neighbor and childhood companion. Mild-mannered but kind-hearted, the guilt of his youth haunts him into adulthood.

Raju

An exceptionally intelligent Indian boy — a catalyst in Yinxia's intellectual and emotional growth, a brief but intense flash of light in her life.

05

⠑ 05 · Director's Statement

In the layered, time-interwoven narrative of This Timeworn Land, I see a quiet epic — fate and the individual locked in silent collision within a theatre of ordinary lives.

Yinxia's journey distills the helplessness one feels when pitted against vast, inscrutable forces. None of her decisions are decisive — no one wins the war against time. But together, they carve a quiet victory: the reclamation of memory, the assertion of dignity, the rebirth of self.

There is a radicalism in telling the story of a blind woman through a quintessentially visual medium. It demands a bold cinematic language — expansive in form, intimate in feeling — with an intense focus on inventive sound design and performance. This film offers audiences not darkness, but a reimagining of the relationship between sight and truth.

⠋ 06 · Themes & Tones

01

Memory as Resistance

What has been forgotten or erased returns to view through memory and storytelling.

02

Growth and Decay, Joy and Pain

Friendship, family, love; tragedy, regret, and uncertainty.

03

An Epic of Ordinary Lives

A story of trauma and misfortune; a quiet redemption that transcends time and death.

04

In Darkness

Blindness versus the illusions of everyday life. How touch and sound construct character, space, and image.

05

Atmosphere

Lyrical, romantic; melancholic, nostalgic. The extraordinary emerging within the ordinary.

07

⠛ 07 · Team

Xing You

Director / Writer

An award-winning writer-director whose work explores human contradictions through bold, emotionally charged storytelling. Having lived and studied across four countries, he brings a global sensibility to stories rooted in Asian experience. Born in Chengdu, China; BA from Texas Christian University; MFA in Film from Emerson College. His debut feature Summer Knight won the Asian Future Best Film Award at the 2019 Tokyo International Film Festival, among other international honours.

Yanmai Qiao

Producer

A multidisciplinary creative with a diverse cross-sector background. With a strong foundation in art and design, she has curated large-scale cultural events for national-level institutions. She has received training in psychoanalysis, offering a distinctive psychological perspective in character development and script work.

Yue Zheng

Producer

An award-winning film producer dedicated to bringing distinctive Asian voices to the international screen. His most recent production, Brief History of a Family (2024), was selected for more than 20 international film festivals, including Sundance, Berlinale, and Karlovy Vary, and received the Best Director Award at the Beijing International Film Festival. A member of Gold House.

Sheldon Chau

Cinematographer

An award-winning director of photography with extensive experience across international productions spanning multiple continents. MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts; recipient of the ARRI Volker Bahnemann Award; selected for the ASC Vision Mentorship Program. Credits include Official Selections at Venice (Horizons) and Berlin International Film Festival.