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A key 5th Generation work launched during the second phase of Deng Xiaoping's social and economic reforms, this durable social satire wonderfully shows the clash between the increasing class of rapid industrial modernizers and also old Celebration cadres with a serious Cultural Revolution hangover. The movie narrates the Kafkaesque circumstance of a bumbling factory translator who is suspected of commercial reconnaissance after sending an innocent telegram that is intercepted by a militant snoop. (The "black cannon" of the title describes the missing out on chess piece the hapless hero is trying to situate.) Put under investigation and reassigned to a much less delicate department but never informed of the factor for his demotion, he applications to obtain his task back, triggering an increasingly obtuse and humorous collection of Event meetings, set in a conference room right out of German Expressionism.