Bus 44

Bus 44 is a Venice and Sundance Film Festival award-winning short film written and directed by Chinese-American filmmaker Dayyan Eng in 2001, starring Chinese actress Gong Beibi and Wu Chao. Bus 44 takes place on the outskirts of a small town and tells the story of a bus driver (Gong) and her passengers' encounter with highway robbers. The film was loosely based on an amalgamation of supposed true events, though there has never been any verified source. Plot The short film introduces a female driver driving a bus on a remote road. A young man came up on the way. The two people had a good impression during their conversation. Two gangsters stopped the bus and boarded it. They got on the bus and robbed all the passengers' belongings. However, the gangsters did not end their crime at robbery, but they also pulled the female driver out of the bus and raped her. At the critical moment, all the passengers in the car thought "more is worse than less" and chose to remain indifferent. Only the guy went down to rescue the female driver, but he was also stabbed in the leg with a knife and beaten by the culprit. After that, the two gangsters left, and the traumatized female driver returned to the car, but removed the young man out of the bus and took the other passengers on the road. The young man had to get in another car to move on. Later, he found that there were many policemen in front of him. After asking, he learned that the female driver drove the bus down the cliff, and neither she nor the other passengers were spared. Production Bus 44 was director Dayyang Eng's first professional short film. It was shot on 35mm film stock with a small cast and crew on the outskirts of Beijing in 2001.