Director's Note

This is a fantasy film grounded in a realist story. The recurring motifs of “road” and “murder case” give it the flavor of genre cinema, while the presence of “detective” and “femme fatale” evokes the quintessential spirit of film noir, all enveloped in a dense tropical ambiance. The lingering remnants of war along the border serve as its historical footnote. At its core, the film speaks of life and death, memory and oblivion, guilt and love.

All characters are engaged in a profound search—for a daughter, a father, a stone of chance—hiding jade or nothing at all—and ultimately, for themselves. The scars of history and warfare lie buried beneath layers of desolation. Suspended between the legends of "nine-star alignment" and the whispers of an ending world, I aspire to construct - through the interplay of light, shadow, the real and the imagined - a world that appears both elusive and unfathomable.

With West Border, I hope to create a film with a voice of its own, one that resists conformity. My vision is to merge the political metaphors and imaginative power of Latin American literature with the aesthetic sensibilities and methodologies of cult cinema and B-movies, set against the lush, verdant, and enigmatic landscapes of Southwest China.