Wolf Totem review – lupine thrills and pack mentality

Bestseller adaptation that is part wildlife doc, part dissection of the Cultural Revolution; at times fantastically exiting, at others bogged down in muddy metaphor

Chosen as China's foreign-language Oscar entry this year, you'd expect Jean-Jacques Annaud's adaptation of Wolf Totem, a bestseller by Li1/4 Jiamin, to dutifully toe the party line - especially as it's set during the Cultural Revolution, a wound never requiring much unstitching. But from the moment Feng Shaofeng's bright-eyed party cadre steps out on to the Mongolian steppes - where Li1/4 was posted in the 1960s - Annaud's film can't help itself galloping off in allegorical bursts barely under his control, and intriguingly off-course from the kind of bold messages of national conciliation officially sanctioned Chinese films tend to convey.

Related: Jean-Jacques Annaud: 'People who make films are in danger every day'