Lou Ye is apparently one of China’s most controversial filmmakers, having both his works and his personal career being banned on multiple occasions. This is the first time I’ve watched one of his films however and this one was made with the full blessing of the governing authorities. It mixes what I understand are professional performers from the director’s usual cast with amateurs who really are blind masseurs to depict the workings of a massage center in Nanjing.

There’s no single protagonist here. What we have instead is a window into the world of the workers employed by the center, all of whom have varying degrees of blindness. There’s Sha Fuming, the owner of the center, who has been blind since birth but hasn’t given up hope on finding someone to share with his life with. There’s Du Hong, who customers frequently praise for her beauty, but of course none of them can see for themselves whether or not that’s true. As the story begins, Wang Dafu, an old classmate of Sha, and his fiancée joins them. There’s also Xiao Ma, a young man who was rendered blind in a childhood accident and has never truly come to terms with his disability.

Naturally each one carries their own baggage with them but one common current runs through the entire film: they seek affection, security and love just like everyone else. One of the best scenes in the film is when Wang makes love with his fiancée. Awkwardness takes on a whole new dimension when two blind people must fumble around clothes and each other’s bodies by touch alone. Yet it is a powerful reminder to the sighted that the blind crave physical intimacy just as much as we do. In fact, the film constantly reminds us that absent vision, the remaining senses become correspondingly more important. It looks creepy for a person to run their hands all over another person’s face and then smell and lick their own fingers afterwards, but what else is left for them?

I also love all of the little aspects of everyday life for the blind that the film includes. How wind chimes are placed strategically around so that they know when someone is around, how pointless television is as entertainment for them, how two people can physically intimate to an astonishing degree while other people in the room remain oblivious. They seem obvious in retrospect but we just never think of them. At the same time, the film doesn’t gloss over the fact that those who can see have massive advantages over them those who cannot and the blind are well aware of this. At one point, they call the sighted gods who live in a privileged world of their own and notes that the two communities must forever remain apart. The film makes the delightfully ironic point clear by showing that the blind are well aware of what photographs are and why they are important, and so pose carefully for important occasions even though they of course can never see the photos themselves.

The cinematography and the acting are both excellent, with the standout performer being the amateur Zhang Lei who plays the fiancée. At times, the visuals devolve into a murky blur to simulate the partially blind characters trying to make sense of what they see. It certainly reminded me how valuable sight is and why I should be grateful for having it. An interesting gimmick here is that the director intended that the blind could also enjoy the film, so there is an omniscient narrator throughout. Even the opening credits are read out instead of being shown on screen.

The one place where the film stumbles a bit is the sub-plot in which a prostitute falls in love with one of the blind. It seems trite and feels like trying too hard to reach for a perfect ending for one of the main characters. Apart from that, it successfully manages to give the audience some incredibly valuable and interesting insight into what the lives of the blind are like while dodging the pitfall of turning this into mere misery porn. The blind are ultimately just regular people, the film seems to say. Their disability makes their lives harder than most and we should acknowledge that fact. But despite their difficulties, they still manage to live worthwhile and satisfactory lives and that is a damn fine point for a film to make.