Category: Non-English
Ah, where do I begin for Jia Zhang-Ke, firstly am very happy to have made the transition into liking Chinese 6th generation film-makers, after Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou & Wong Kar Wai I was a little skeptical about my own ability to love the 6th generation but I passed with flying colors.
This movie probably demands it's own paper or essay but it hits out at so many issues faced by the Chinese. The film is essentially about 3 youngsters in a town close to Beijing, the film follows their life and their almost dreary existence. The film has such a raw feel to it that it comes across very poignantly.
The film touches on issues ranging from one child per family (China's enforced birth control), it hits on the Chinese regime, the day to day existence and isolation faced by millions of children, the seeking of understanding of ones own traditions and the western paraphernalia we are all bombarded with. There's plenty of pop culture references for people to keep alert (y0 Mtv Generation!) this film is also a part of the informal trilogy of Jia Zhang-Ke on the modern China, so I hope that trivia made you feel good.
Recommendation level: 5/5. The pace might get too slow for the Mtv generation, so kindly be careful if you only like Michael Bay's films. It's out on NDTV Lumiere so it shouldn't be too hard to find in any of the regular places (Crossword/Landmark). At least they got their spellings in the sub-titles right but then there's the punctuation...
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