1 Mile Above tells the true story of a young Taiwanese man’s quest to cycle from central China to Lhasa, the highest point in Tibet, to fulfill his recently deceased brother’s final wish of making the trek. The journey is a perilous one, without breaks or stopping it’s a 60 hour bike ride that would take experienced riders half a month to complete which our lead, Zhang Shuhao (Bryan Chang), is extremely far from, he’s never even owned a bike. On top of the 1,100 mile distance, he will experience an abundance of challenges from icy, rainy and freezing weather, to traffic and wild dogs and, of course, overcoming the mental obstacles that continually tell you to stop. With the help of an older man named Xiaochuan (Li Xiaochuan) who is riding to the same place, Zhang Shuhao will stop at nothing to reach the peak of Lhasa and make his brother proud.
From first time director Du Jiaya, 1 Mile Above feels very much like an independent effort as he takes us on a journey through China and Tibet via way of bicycle. It’s got a lot of shaky camerawork at times giving it an amateur but adventurous feel when some of those shots clearly should have been mounted for still and smooth camerawork. That being said, you could tell this movie took some work to pull off thanks to the difficult and demanding nature of the set (mountains and cold, wet weather).
The problem with the film is its screenplay, our lead Shuhao doesn’t exactly have much to say. His dialogue is kept to an intense minimum leaving much of the film’s talk time to the charismatic, knowledgeable and entertaining Xiaochuan whose presence is one of two reasons you’re able to stay engaged with the film. He provides invaluable information to Shuhao and is basically the only reason he has a chance of surviving his trip let alone potentially succeeding. Rather than acting like a stiff mannequin, Chang probably would have been able to deliver a better performance had the script gave him an opportunity to open up and express his emotions and tell us more about his background.
One of the reasons you stay for the film is the entertaining anecdotes that Xiaochuan tells, but the other reason, and this is the main one for me, is that Du Jiaya takes us on a visual adventure. We get to explore and behold the stunning natural scenes that China and Tibet have to offer as Shuhao makes progress on his Tibetan pilgrimage. We have a chance to see the different climates in the same nation, providing us various scenes of beauty, but it isn’t until you begin to see a bit of snow that the scenery becomes magical, especially when the shots are from high up on the mountains.
1 Mile Above is a film that moves briskly for the first hour, giving us a sense of wonder as we journey through China on a bicycle, but as we transition and work through the final 30 minutes, like Shuhao, all the steam and energy dies making 30 minutes feel like an hour as we trudge with our lead uphill to the end.
Overall, this is a film about reaching your goal and achieving what you set out to do, breaking through that mental barrier that stops so many of us from finishing seemingly impossible tasks. Plagued by some performance and script issues, 1 Mile Above achieves the cinematic journey it wants to tell for a majority of the time but fails to smoothly seal the deal.
Rating: A beautiful adventure to watch that’s plagued by a number of speed bumps (6.6/10)
Recent Comments