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Xiaoshuai Wang (China, 1966), filmmaker of China's "sixth generation"
Dong Chun de Ri Zi/ The Days (1993)
Ji Du Han Leng/ Frozen (1997)
Bian Dan Gu Niang/ So Close to Paradise/ Ruan's Song (1998)
Meng Huan Tian Yuan/ The House/ Suburban Dreams/ Fantasy Garden (1999)
Shiqi Sui De Dan Che/ Beijing Bicycle (2001)
Shiqi sui de dan che/ Beijing Bicycle (2001) is centered upon class
conflict and the urban-rural divide in capitalist China.
A poor boy from the countryisde, Guei, moves to the capital, buys an expensive
bicycle and finds a job as messenger. He is hard working and little talkative,
a simple soul in a cruel world. He slowly pays off the bicycle, but one
day a thief steals it. He loses his job, but jos boss promises to take him back
if he finds his bicycle. Guei starts roaming the cities and the parks of the
city, desperately seeking his bike that now represents his entire future.
The bicycle has been purchased by a spoiled city boy, who has stolen
money from his father, because his father refused
to buy a bicycle for him (preferring to pay for his sister's studies).
The city boy, Jian,
wants to show off to his very westernized friends and especially to a sweet
girl, Qin. He uses the bike to romance her, but is too shy to make the first
move. One day Guei recognizes Jian's bike as his own and steals it back.
Chased by Jian and his friends, Guei is almost beaten. But Guei is stubborn,
and finds another way to steal the bike. He gets his job back, and starts
riding through the city again. One day he accidentally hits a gorgeous-looking
girl (another spoiled and westernized figure) who doesn't even look at him.
He is fascinated by the decadent girl.
Jian's friends find out where he works, chase him and beat him
(in a bicycle version of Hollywood's car chases). But Guei is stubborn, and
shows up at Jian's place, confronting not only Jian but also his father, and
his father understands what happened: Jian stole the money that disappeared from
the house, and then bought the bike from the thief. Jian's father returns the
bike to Guei, who has hardly said one word more than necessary to claim his
bike. Guei behaves like an animal: it is his bike, and lives only to get it
back, and doesn't know any other way to get it back than take it or ask for it.
Jian is under pressure from girls and his gang to regain his bike, no matter
who is the legitimate owner. When he is surrounded by Jian's friend, Guei is
totally incapable of definind himself: he simply repeats that the bike is his.
He desperately clings to him bike as they are pulling it from him, and then
starts screaming: he is fighting for his future in the city. The gang eventually
gives up: they are good boys after all. They spend the rest of the day
arguing, until eventually one of them finds a compromise acceptable to both
parties: they will share the bike. While the fight and the negotiations
go on, one can see the lights and hear the noises of the city in the background.
So they start a strange friendship, using the bike every other day.
But Jian seems to have lost Qin. When another spoiled kid, member of another
gang, starts romancing her,
he grabs a brick and hits him in the head. Then returns the bike to Guei
for good: he doesn't need the bike anymore. The gang that is chasing Jian sees
the two together, and they start chasing both. They both get beaten, and
the bicycle gets destroyed. Guei grabs a brick and hits the kid that is
kicking it.
r Di/ Drifters (2003)
Qing Hong/ Shanghai Dreams (2005)
Zuo You/ In Love We Trust (2008)
Rizhao Chongqing/ Chongqing Blues (2010)
Wo Shiyi/ 11 Flowers (2011)
Chuangru Zhe/ Red Amnesia (2014)
Wo de Jingtou/ Chinese Portrait (2018)
Di Jiu Tian Chang/ As Long as Heaven and Earth Endure/ So Long My Son (2019), photographed by Hyun-seok Kim, and starring
Jingchun Wang and Mei Yong,
is a family saga that spans 30 years, from the time when China was still largely an isolated Maoist country, just coming out of the Cultural Revolution, to the time when China was being
completely reshaped by a breathtaking economic boom.
It is actually the sage of two families, one of humble workers whose miseries
never end, and other one of a privileged couple that takes fully advantage
of the transformation of the country.
The workers don't stand a chance and the woman in particular is endlessly
humiliated and crucified.
At first it appears that the film is about the effects of Chinas one-child policy (enacted in 1979) but the twisted fate of the humble couple, and especially of the wife, seems to point to a much meditation on destiny, injustice, forgiveness and, ultimately, meaning.
Wang excels at placing the camera in ways that show us the context of the drama,
that juxtapose the struggling individual against the heartless sociopolitical context (whether the factory or the urban environment),
so that the intimate portraits and the larger political upheavals mix and merge.
While the story increasingly focuses on one couple out of one billion Chinese,
it is designed to imply that they represent the entire nation.
The story is an epic of endurance and resilience, and it is implied that the
entire nation suffered and endured. The film becomes
a tribute to the resilience of an entire nation.
The story is both moving and bordering on Shakespearian tragedy but the film
is marred by a weird montage that often cuts a scene without telling us what
happens (only to tell us much later) and by temporal jumps that are confusing.
The nonlinear disjointed narrative ends up subtracting instead of adding to the emotional impact. Wang indulges in narrative tricks as if he was trying to turn a realistic melodrama about the traumas of a nation into some kind of Hitchcock-ian thriller.
Two children are at the beach with other friends. Haohao wants to swim with the others, while Xingxing stays behind because he can't swim.
Xingxing's parents are humble workers: Yaojun and Liyun.
Then we see Xingxing back to the beach with the other kids and suddenly
his parents rushing towards him. It appears that Xingxing has drowned.
His father Yaojun carries the child
in his arms all the way to the hospital. We are not told if the child survives.
The film fast forwards several years. Yaojun and Liyun have moved to a faraway village and have a slightly older child called Xingxing who is rebellious and
dysfunctional. The school tells them that Xingxing has stolen by other kids.
The parents try in vain to deal with the kid. He runs away and they look in vain
everywhere. Now we learn from the parents that the real Xingxing died and that
this is an adopted child. Nonetheless they care for him like for their own.
A flashback shows Xingxing and Haohao born on the same day, and Xingxing's
parents being close to Haohao's parents, Yingming and Haiyan.
We then see that Yaojun and Liyun worked in a factory and Haiyan was their superior.
Back to the present, when they live in a remote village,
Liyun and Yaojun are still looking for the disappeared Xingxing, and we learn
that he was adopted from an orphanage.
Yaojun receives a phone call and drives to a nearby town where he meets
an attractive business woman: Yingming's younger sister Moli.
Yaojun is surprised that she found out where they now live.
Moli tells him that everybody knows where they moved.
Yaojun tells Moli sadly that they chose that village because it feels like
a foreign country and that time for them stopped when Xingxing died.
We understand from their conversation that they have not seen each other in a long time and in fact that Yaojun and Lijun have not seen Yingming and Haiyan in many years.
Moli informs Yaojun that Yangming has become a rich businessman, that Haiyan retired, and that Haohao is enrolled in university.
Moli divorced her husband and is moving to the USA.
A flashback shows Yaojun and Moli at the factory, Yaojun training the teenager
Moli. A man who is into "fashion", Xinjian, throws a small party playing Western pop songs that are forbidden. He invites Yaojun and Moli.
Yaojun brings Lijun. Xinjian dances with his girlfriend Meiyu.
Yangming and Haiyan drop by. Haiyan is opposed to playing those foreign songs and
demands something more appropriate. They play a song that reminds them of the
Cultural Revolution and the men are nostalgic. A few days later the two families learn that Xinjian has been arrested for throwing one of those parties.
They whisper to each other, fearful of being heard by the neighbors.
Xinjian's girlfriend Meiyu frantically destroys all of Xinjian's music tapes.
They live in an atmosphere of terror.
We return to the hotel room where Yaojun is chatting with Moli.
Moli realizes that Yaojun hasn't told Lijun of their meeting.
We understand that something happened in the past between
Yaojun and Moli.
Another flashback shows that Liyun got pregnant of a second child and Haiyan, who was responsible for the discipline of the factory workers, convinced her to terminate the pregnancy because of the "one child policy" of the time that limited couples to one child. At the hospital Liyun almost dies.
Yaojun and Liyun are given an award for this.
Some years later Moli, who just graduated from university, seduces Yaojun, and we guess that's the secret between the two.
The two families and Meiyu visit Xinjian who is still in jail.
Meiyu has decided to start a new life in another city.
Another flashback shows, a few weeks later, that the officials decided to lay
off many workers at the factory. Liyun was one of them (maybe Yaojun too, although we don't hear his name called).
The official is attacked by the angry workers, but there's nobody to defend
those who were laid off.
At this point Xingxing and Haohao were best friends, always playing together.
So we understand that the couple was already affected financially by the layoffs.
The film then forwards to the time after the disappearance of the second Xingxing
(we know this from an article in the newspaper).
We see Liyun on a boat and Moli on another boat briefly crossing each
other's routes. We are not told if they recognize each other.
Moli is coming to tell Yaojun that she's pregnant of his child (she found out they day she got her visa to the USA), and offers the child to Yaojun to replace
the dead Xingxing.
When Yaojun returns home, he doesn't tell anything to Liyun but it is implied
that she knows: she offers him a divorce (which is heroic because she lost
her child, was forced to abort the second one, and now is cheated by her
husband).
We then see Liyun pray in a Buddhist temple.
Yaojun meets Moli again and tells her that he doesn't want to raise the child.
The film then returns to the drowning.
Haiyan is furious with her son Haohao for provoking the incident.
Haiyan and Yangming feel guilty, but
Liyun and Yaojun forgive Haohao.
Moli blames Haiyan for the abortion that deprived Liyun of the second child,
which now would be a consolation for Liyun.
The second Xingxing reappears with a gang of idle kids on motorcycles.
Liyun gives them food and then tries in vain to make him understand the
disappointment of raising him to see him waste his life with punks.
Since he cannot be redeemed, Yaojun lets him free. From their discussion
we learn that they adopted him and named him Xingxing but his real name
is completely different.
Moli, on New Year's Even, try to convince the couple to join a party to
celebrate that Xinjian and Meiyu got married and came back, but
Yaojun and Liyun prefer to remain in their home.
Liyun leaves Yaojun and Moli alone. Moli tells him that she had the child
Now the film forwards to the present.
Yangming is a successful businessman but
Haiyan is going crazy, haunted by guilt that she forced Liyun to get the
abortion and her own son Haohao caused the death of Liyun's only son Xingxing.
A flashback shows that Liyun even tried to kill herself. Yaojun found her
dying and carried her in his arms to the hospital, just like he had done
with their son. Again, we don't see if she survives. (But obviously she does because she's alive in the present)
Haohao is now an adult, and a doctor. He knows that his mother Haiyan has a terminal cancer.
Haiyan can sense that she is dying and wants to see Yaojun and Liyun one
more time.
We learn that this family has not seen Yaojun and Liyun since these moved away.
Haiyan confesses that she's been thinking of them every day.
Haiyan wants to see them before dying.
Yangming pays for their flight.
Yaojun and Liyun finds the city completely changed from the time they worked
in the factory. Their old condominium is one of the few that has not been
destroyed to build modern homes.
At the hospital they finally meet again
Xinjian and Meiyu, and then Yangming, who hugs them in tears.
And then Haohao, and then Haiyan just before she dies.
Yangming offers a new apartment to them if they decide to stay.
As they drive back to their old apartment, staring from the car's windows
at the new buildings of the city,
Liyun is angry that there is no trace of the past.
But then they see a statue of Mao and Yaojun waves smiling.
Haohao has decided to make a confession. He tells them that he didn't just
pressure Xingxing to get into the water, he accidentally killed Xingxing by
forcing him into the water.
Later Yangming shows up in tears offering Yaojun a butcher's knife to kill Haohao according to the law of "an eye for an eye".
But Yaojun and Liyun don't care anymore, and only want to be friends again.
The humble couple returns to their village and visit the tomb of their son.
Haohao calls them: his wife has had a baby.
They return to Haohao's place to celebrate the event and treat the baby as
their godson. They also videochat with Moli, who now lives in the USA and
shows them her son, Sunny. And we know that's Yaojun's son.
Yaojun doesn't say anything.
The couple is surprise to receive a phone call from the second Xingxing,
who has decided to he returns home with a girlfriend; the first good news in a long time
Luguan/ The Hotel (2022)
Wotu/ Above the Dust (2024)
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