To Kill a Mongolian Horse
一匹白马的热梦

Saina struggles to make ends meet as a herder on the frozen steppe of Inner Mongolia. By day, he tends to his family’s horses while navigating tensions with his aging father and fractured relationships with his ex-wife and child. By night, he transforms into a majestic cavalryman in theatrical horseback performances—a role that starkly contrasts with his harsh reality. As the world he once knew rapidly changes around him, Saina grapples with the erosion of traditional Mongolian identity in this intimate, female-directed portrait of masculinity in crisis.

Inspired by true events from the life of director’s friend Saina (who plays himself), the film exposes the paradox of modern Mongolian manhood. The hyper-masculine horse show arena fetishizes performers like Saina, celebrating their ethnic identity and warrior imagery while obscuring their personal struggles. As Saina moves between the spotlight’s illusion and his crumbling reality, the dissonance becomes unbearable—until performance and truth violently collide.

To Kill a Mongolian Horse emerges from a pan-Asian co-production, amplifying an urgent voice from Inner Mongolia’s frontier. It captures ethnic Mongolians straddling dual Chinese/Mongolian identities, their nomadic heritage yielding to industrialization’s relentless march. Through Saina’s journey, the film interrogates what it means to be “Mongolian” when traditions become performances and survival demands reinvention.

JIANG XIAOXUAN
Jiang Xiaoxuan is a writer-director born in Inner Mongolia, China. She received her BFA in Film & TV from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her narrative short Graveyard of Horses (2022) won the NETPAC Award at the Busan International Short Film Festival, the Grand Prix Award at the Hiroshima International Film Festival, and Best Student International Short at the Denver Film Festival. To Kill a Mongolian Horse (2024) is her debut feature.

Sat Apr 26, 2025 | 13:30
Stadtkino
Red Lotus 2025

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Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, USA 2024 2024
98 Min | Color | Mongolian, Chinese with English subtitles

Directed by JIANG Xiaoxuan

To Kill a Mongolian Horse © Huniche Pictures