Deadly Ice and Wild Dogs, but Oh, the Vistas For his first feature, "1 Mile Above," the Chinese director Du Jiayi tries to persuade us that there's nobility in risking your life to cycle more than 1,100 miles across some of the world's most treacherous terrain. When you have never even owned a bicycle. Like his hero, he struggles. Adapting Xie Wanglin's novel "Zhuan Shan," Mr. Du merges road movie and spiritual pilgrimage to follow Shuhao (Bryan Chang), a young Taiwanese graduate, on his rocky road from central China to Lhasa, Tibet. To honor his beloved brother, an experienced cyclist who died before completing the same trip, Shuhao will brave extreme altitudes, food poisoning, wild dogs and deadly ice. Not to mention his own clumsiness. Luckily for Shuhao (and for us, as Mr. Chang is a singularly inexpressive lead), he meets Xiaochuan (Li Xiaochuan), an older, more seasoned rider whose knowledge of fluctuating elevations and hairpin bends proves invaluable. As Xiaochuan pushes his young companion through pain and exhaustion, Mr. Li provides the charisma that his wooden colleague lacks. This is at least partly the fault of a screenplay (by Chang Chia-lu and Cheng Hsiao-che) that gives Shuhao very little to say: whether making eyes at a winsome widow or witnessing a tragic accident, he makes fewer noises than those dogs. An earlier cut of the film, the publicity notes suggest, may have deepened the character, but this version seems determined to make location the star. Filling the blanks with ice cream mountains and swoon-inducing vistas, the cinematographer Du Jie delivers moments of visual ecstasy that almost make us forget that they're framing a reckless cipher.