Mountains May Depart

Mountains May Depart (2015) is a drama from Chinese director Jia Zhangke that you can watch online on iFILM. It spans twenty-five years across three chapters — 1999, 2014 and 2025 — following Tao, a young woman in the provincial city of Fenyang, and a choice whose echo reaches everyone a decade on.

At the turn of the millennium two childhood friends court her. Zhang is a brash entrepreneur with a gas station and big plans; Liang is a coal miner with neither money nor illusions. Whoever Tao picks will shape not just her life but her unborn son's. Time then scatters the family across cities and borders, and the boy grows up on another continent in another language, barely remembering his mother. Zhao Tao carries all three eras as the lead.

Jia Zhangke turns this into a quiet study of what China's economic boom costs — migration, distance, and the way money buys everything except closeness. The film played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Slow, precise and aching, it's for viewers who love unhurried arthouse Asian cinema. Stream Mountains May Depart (2015) online on iFILM.