Ren xiao yao (2002) Reviews

• Powerful and affecting

  howard.schumann2002-10-18

  Unknown Pleasures, directed by Jia Zhangke, powerfully brings home the spiritual malaise affecting Chinese youth as a result of global capitalism. Although the film is set in a small, impoverished Chinese city in remote Shanxi province close to the Mongolian border, there is almost nothing traditionally Chinese in this film other than the location. Two 19-year olds, Bin Bin (Zhao Wei Wei) and Xiao Ji (Wy Qiong) are heavily influenced by American culture and seem to exist only for their own immediate pleasure. They live on the margins in a city where, according to the director, two-thirds of the population were unemployed in 2001. They drink coke, chain smoke cigarettes, covet U.S. dollars, talk excitedly about Hollywood movies such as Pulp Fiction, and dance to Western-style music at the local club. In the words of Kent Jones (Film Comment Sept/Oct 2002), the protagonists are "media-addicted, resigned to momentous change, and powerless to understand or affect it". Bin Bin lives with his mother (Bai Ru), who works at a local textile factory and sympathizes with the Falun Gong (an extreme Buddhist religious sect that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist government). Apathetic and disengaged with no job and nothing to do, the two friends hang around the local community center playing pool and chatting with the regulars. After trying out for an acting job, Xiao Ji becomes attracted to Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao) whose protective lover is gangster Quiao San. Xiao follows her around but seems unable or unwilling to make a move. When they finally go dancing, Xiao has to confront the threats of Quiao San's goons who finally catch up with him and slap him around. Bin Bin also has a girlfriend, Yuan Yuan (Zhou Qing Feng), but their romance seems to consist only in watching movies in a hotel room and singing popular songs (whose words suggest their own lives). Yuan Yuan has more purpose in life than Bin Bin and wants to study International Trade in Beijing. In a scene depicting Jia's wry humor, Xiao Ji puts Yuan's studies in perspective by saying, "WTO is nothing. Just a trick to make some cash" and Bin Bin declares to Yuan Yuan, " It is said that international trade is about buying rabbits to resell in the Ukraine." With little interest in common, they slowly drift apart. In a very telling scene, as Bin Bin sits in a booth in the inside of a train station staring blankly, Yuan Yuan rides her bicycle around and around, waiting for him to throw off his lethargy and join her. Though the boys hear about events in the outside world on television, for example, the winning of the Olympic Games by Beijing and the arrest of the leaders of the Falun Gong in Japan, they don't seem affected. Seemingly inured to unexplained violence, they are just mildly perplexed when a bomb explodes nearby with tragic results. Bin Bin asks whether the United States is attacking China. Shot in digital video that enhances its authenticity, Jia avoids pathos and sentimentality for a documentary-style realism that is deeply affecting. Although he focuses on the boys as victims of social and economic dislocation in China, the theme is more about feelings of abandonment, loneliness, and emotional numbness. Jia, one of the best of China's new generation underground "indie" directors, has captured this sense of ennui more palpably than any movie I've seen in a long, long time. When Xiao finally abandons his sputtering motor bike in the middle of a new superhighway, Jia seems to be suggesting that both he and China itself are at a precarious crossroads in their existence and must discard what isn't working if they are to move on.

• Good film for industrializing China

  ulyssestone2005-01-04

  Since I have seen the other two films by Jia, I was more or less prepared for his way of narrative. But there were still many things attracted me. The industrializing city itself, with all the dirty scars on its face, established a sorrowful mood for the whole film. The most promising character (Bin Bin's girlfriend) was always sitting like a puppet, dreaming of a world that she did not exactly know. The young people's mind were fulfilled with information from pop music and American movies, the Chinese tradition was totally cut off, I could even hardly find any morality in them, a nowhere generation. When one of the most interesting scene (Bin Bin's girlfriend riding bike in that hall, waiting for him for a while and finally departed from him slowly) ended, it seems that it's all over, but then came an absurd bank robbing that made the helplessness of their lives more obvious, when Xiao Ji tried to restart his motorcycle repeatedly, it seem his only hope, but he failed, and jumped into a bus which took him away alone the new highway that leads to the unknown big city. I hope next film of Jia would focus on big cities, because I think the problems showed in Jia's past works are not just caused by poorness. It is lucky that at this transforming time of China we have an artist like Jia to speak in his own voice when everyone else seems happy with those "great" changes.

• Artistic, Compelling, & Existential

  jmverville2004-09-01

  The story begins with an outline of the mundaneness of the lives and future of two Chinese youths, and progresses into showing in a short amount of time just how much their lives and personal situations change; dealing with unemployment, troublesome love lives and coming into their own a beautiful story unfolds. With allusions to the film Pulp Fiction throughout and a recurring song that touches the heart, with solid performances by all of the actors (especially Zhao Tao) it was a very good film. My only criticism is at times the story can be slow, though overall the story is far more interesting than one sees in normal cinema. The film was particularly strong in the simplistic nature of the film-making itself, with nothing ever over-the-top. It aimed to tell the situation as how it really is, and to tell life like how it really is, not some sort of Hollywoodized conception of life. The artistic reflection that was put into the film shows a great and amazing depth to it that is often hard to find. Overall, a great film my Jia Zhang-ke. The feelings of hopelessness that he is able to make oneself feel make this a must-see for anyone who enjoys sad cinema and existentialism, and is interested in the struggles of youth and issues of modernization and globalization.

• Indie Filmmaking with a Social Conscience

  kmethi2002-11-08

  Unknown Pleasures is the first Jia Zhang Ke film that I have seen and it is excellent. The setting is a town in the north of China, but it could be anywhere in the developing world - India, Argentina or South Africa, for example - where neo liberal economic policies have benefitted the urban elite, but created dislocation for millions of others. The director undoubtedly has a deep social conscience. The film focuses on several young people, members of China's "new new" generation. As the films progresses, we see what the new world order offers them - US currency, American pop culture, the 2008 Olympics, new super highways - contrasted with the reality - few opportunities for young people, laid off state factory workers and a general degradation of moral values. The message is clear: the new world order offers common people everything in return for giving up traditional ways of life, but actually delivers little of substance. As Bin Bin puts it when he finds out that his girlfriend is going to Beijing to study international trade: "WTO is nothing. Just a trick to make some cash." The social realist style - it has a bit of a documentary look to it - and the pop song which the film is named after and which features prominently in it (Ren Xiao Yao - the lyrics speak about youth alienation, particularly a desire for freedom and pleasure) also provide a cutting edge look and feel. The song is emotive and will strike a chord with those who like explorations of youth alienation. However, the film, as befits the political and artistic climate in China, is very subtle and understated, and may escape those who have little knowledge of current affairs in China or an insensitivity to the economic and social dislocation that is taking place outside the big cities (this is not a good date movie for the corporate Western expat and his urban Chinese girlfriend who measure progress by the number of new condos and Western restaurants in Shanghai). This is great indie filmmaking, though, and I would particularly recommend it to socially and politically aware twenty and thirtysomethings who like artistic expression that is intelligent, socially conscientious and cutting edge.

• Subtly brilliant

  rich655362004-06-03

  Unknown Pleasures is a fantastic film, but not one I would recommend to my friends. When you're used to seeing Hollywood film-making, it's difficult to watch a Chinese movie that makes other indy films look glitzy. This is not a film that reaches out and grabs you. The camera keeps an unemotional distance from the characters at first, and only through the use of repetition and extended, unedited shots, does the filmmaker draw the viewer's attention to the subtle details which make this film so powerful. The main characters dream in a world of American pop-culture and pro-Chinese propaganda, but the camera captures their bleak existence with devastating realism. Through his rejection of western cinematic techniques, the director brings this film brilliantly to life. Yet, for this very reason, many viewers will find it boring.