other car to return and pick them up, but severe weather forces them to trek their way home. Liu Dong, travelling alone on the way back to join Ritai with his vehicle fully stocked with supplies, is swallowed by dry quicksand when his vehicle gets stuck. Ritai and Ga finally finds the gunman and leader. But, outnumbered and outgunned, Ritai is killed by the poacher. Ga is free to go as he is not a patrol member. Ritai's body is brought back home for a Sky burial. Captions at the end of the film state that Ga's reports on the atrocities in Kekexili shook the country. After the authorities initially arrested four patrol members for selling pelts, public pressure had them released, but the patrol is nevertheless disbanded. A year later the Chinese government declared Kekexili a "national nature preserve" and established a forestry bureau to protect it. The captions further state that antelope numbers increased to 30,000 at the time of the film's release. Production history The film was shot on location in Kekexili, in both Mandarin and the Tibetan language. Except for the two leads Qi and Tobgyal, all of the cast is made of Tibetan amateur actors. Despite the low budget, development benefited from much corporate support, being funded in majority by Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros. and Canon. The harsh conditions took their toll on the film crew with several members falling ill, including director Lu. Also Alex Graf, production manager from Columbia Pictures, was killed on location in a car accident at age 32. In order to re-enact the shooting death of a Tibetan Antelope, the filmmakers acquired a Mongolian Gazelle (a second-class protected species under Chinese law) from a nearby reserve, fixed Tibetan antelope antlers to it, and then filmed as the animal was killed. According to lead actor Zhang Lei, the crew was upset about this as some had grown affectionate towards the animal actor. The animal was later buried. Reception Kekexili was among the few Mainland Chinese films to win the Golden Horse Best Film Award in Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival, in 2004. It also won the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival in the same year. The film had a profound impact in China in bringing attention the region and the plight of its inhabitants and endangered species. This led the Chinese government to offer much-delayed support to