Absorbing, slow-paced thriller

A CHUBBY village policeman and an elderly pig breeder are reluctant allies on the trail of a serial rapist in North by Northeast, a deceptively slow but smart, witty and perfectly absorbing thriller that captures the pulse of village life in China soon after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Written and directed by Zhang Bingjian, the film is a highlight of the third edition of the Singapore Chinese Film Festival, which opens on Friday and runs through April 30.

A feeling of unease runs through a sleepy rural community in north-eastern China, where a sexual predator wearing a surgical mask has been terrorising women in their homes, toying with the police, and then slipping away in the darkness.