Beijing Bicycle
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Movie Reviews of Beijing Bicycle
Movie Review: Excellent Coming of Age film!
Summary: 5 Stars
Beijing Bicycle is the Chinese version of the Italian film Bicycle Thief, and with this in mind the audience should not be disappointed. The story is about two teenagers who live in Beijing. One of the teenagers has just arrived from the countryside and the other has lived in the city his whole life. A social economic message is delivered through these two teenagers, an owner and a thief of a mountain bike, and is intertwined with adolescent obstructions of coming to age. Overall, this is a solid film experience.Movie Review: A wonderfully authentic thought provoking movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a wonderful story of a chinese migrant kid who moves from the village to Beijing to find a job and all the problems that come with it. This story revolves around his bicycle - essentially. I really enjoyed this movie for it's innocence and authentic feel. This is for one of those days when Hollywood just does not feel right and you need a highly refreshing change. I hope this movie wins some awards and is definitely going on my 'must watch' list.Movie Review: A true story of Chinese life
Summary: 5 Stars
You can like it or hate it. But to say this film is not real life, that is simply ridiculous. I am a Chinese in my 30's and this story reminds me of my life more than 10 years ago.Movie Review: Confucian karma
Summary: 4 Stars
Great stories are driven by conflict, and "Beijing Bicycle" presents a conflict both intense and enigmatic. Western viewers might find this movie's ending troublesome and unsatisfactory, but if you have any notion of Chinese culture and Asian thought, a few things come through quite strongly in this movie. And because of this Asian perspective, any comparison of "Beijing Bicycle" with Vittorio De Sicca's "The Bicycle Thief" is inappropriate. The culture of Rome post WWII ("The Bicycle Thief") is quite different from today's Beijing.
Guei (Cui Lin) is a country boy come to the city of Beijing where he lands a job as a bicycle courier. He is given a bicycle and through a form of indentured servitude, he has the opportunity to own the bike after his employer collects 80 percent of his fees. After that, he owns the bike and he splits his fees with the company 50-50.
But Guei is naive in city ways, and finds himself treated rudely by a young clerk at a spa, who appears herself to possibly be a country transplant trying to make good in the city. When he manages to get out of this situation and return to his bike, he discovers it stolen.
Enter Jian (Lee Bing), a self-centered and relatively immature teen who has the hots for a girl and steals money from his parents to buy a bicycle so he can be with this bird. He hangs with a group of other self-absorbed teens, perhaps rendered indolent by their middle-class status. They attend a prep school and indulge in the latest Western fashions, as well as take glory in video games.
Guei tracks down his stolen bike and discovers that Jian has it. There is a protracted struggle (had this been dealt with more succinctly with more attention given to the relationship that developes between Jian and Guei, this movie might have warrented five stars) which leads to a compromise. Even though Guei lost the bike to theft, Jian bought it (with money stolen from his father) from a shop. This compromise works for the most part until Jian is overcome with jealousy when the girl he fancies opts for a slick youth with dyed hair and fashionable sunglasses. His assault on this other youth leads to a showdown in the alleys of Beijing where both Jian and Guei get the bejeesus knocked out of them and Gui's bicycle is destroyed. Yet Guei clings to his bicycle and carries the wreckage across Beijing, presumably to attempt repairing it so he can keep his job.
Confucianism is very strong in China, which is why perhaps that communism has continued there for so long. Guei is the good son who knows his role and is willingly to humbly fulfill it. Jian, on the other hand, is spoiled and self-indulgent. Everything he does centers on his self-interest. Even his giving up the bicycle after he realizes the girl he longs for (who is just as fickle and self-absorded as he is) has gone for another boy has no merit. He gives it up not because someone else (Guei) values it, but because it no longer has value for him. Is this movie a comment on the indolence of today's Chinese middle class? Or perhaps of all middle class sentimentalities that are so materially driven? Probably so. But if Guei is the good son, how come he gets the raw deal at the end?
This is where a Western mind might miss the message. Guei, like Jian, is also attached to something that is false: the bicycle. This is graphically portrayed with Guei clinging desperately to the bicycle as the others try to take it away from him. He is obsessed with the bicycle, and he pays for this obsession as well. But he doesn't give in like Jian has. Guei knows his heart, and he knows what he must do. Guei is not distracted for long by petty desires. Recall that Guei is obsessed briefly with the beautiful, yet enigmatic, rich girl. Yet she turns out to be a ruse as well, just a country girl who has fallen for the false allure of wealth. With that glimpse, Guei sees what can happen to him.
This movie is beautifully complex and compelling. It's one drawback is the mid-section, which dwells too long on the conflict of the bicycle and avoids the richer territory of what makes Jian and Guei compromise.
Movie Review: Masterful Drama
Summary: 4 Stars
Yet another masterful drama from China, this is a story of poetic irony.
Guei, the son of a poor street merchant, moved with his father from the country to the city of Beijing, China's capital. Guei is hired by a delivery service that seems to make a habit of hiring uneducated country boys and is immediately assigned the task of studying the streets of Beijing to make deliveries. He is offered a bike to tackle the task and is promised to hold ownership over his wheels once he has earned 600 yuan.
For the first quarter of the movie you see this boy undergo the task of earning 600 yuan with much difficulty. It seems every delivery has its obstacles and challenges. Guei is estranged, far from what he is familiar with, and it is mostly his unworldly and naïve disposition that gets him into trouble, with no fault of his own. And yet circumstance demands he gets punished for his mistakes. The director demonstrates again and again how everyone in the city is unsympathetic and indifferent toward Guei's ignorance.
But in the end, he finally makes his 600 yuan and is about to claim ownership over a possession other than his clothes: a Silver Mountain Bike. Unfortunately, it gets stolen during a final delivery and this is when the story really begins. The unknown thief pawns the bike and another boy, Jian, buys it with stolen money.
Meanwhile, Guei gets fired from his job and out of desperation, he makes a deal with his boss that if he were to somehow locate and reclaim the bike, he'd get his job back. So now Guei undertakes a mission of locating a bike in a city where bikes on the streets are as numerous as there are cars in New York City. And countless quarrels and violent encounters become inevitable between the two teenage boys once Guei discovers who has his well earned bike.
When Jian comes into the picture, you see the life of another boy who is so ashamed of his poor livings in the city that he delivers a sad display of denial whenever he leaves his home, by dressing in a coat and tie whenever he associates with his friends, forgetting for a few hours that his housing is no more than a tight, miserable hovel. And his new mountain bike only reinforces this fantasy of wealth he plays every time he is with his friends. He starts dating an upscale girl and his dream evolves.
But much like the story of Guei, everything slowly but surely falls apart for poor Jian. Guei takes his bike back from Jian. Jian's girl leaves him for a much better looking man. Jian's little fantasy world is shattered when his father shamefully reveals that he is a thief and the bike was bought with stolen money. And the loss of such small sentimental possessions brings each teenager to a breaking point and it is interesting to see how the two very different, yet similar boys handle the situation.
A story of irony. I am not sure exactly what it is trying to imply, if anything at all, but if I were to guess, I would guess that this story is about a city that is inhabited by people who dream of better lives which they can never have. Even a side character, a pretty young girl which always buys soy sauce from Guei's father has everyone convinced that she is rich and the owner of a big house she is always seen in, but with a sad expression. Later in the movie it is revealed that she was just the house keeper and she got fired for wearing her employer's expensive dresses, playing out a fantasy much like the social fantasy Jian played before his whole world came crashing down.
Either that, or the story is about a bike that has a curse on it because whoever touches the damn thing is overrun by the worse luck imaginable. Even the pretty girl that always bought soy sauce from Guei's father got touched by the bike when Guei was racing it home.
For China travelers and vacationers, this movie would really stimulate old nostalgia. You get great scenes and stills of the ancient city, both the modern and the old segments, like the Hutongs where the two boys dwell.