Beijing Bicycle (China)

Xiaoshuai Wang, 2001, 113min, PG13

A subtle film reflecting on the emerging contemporary life in urban China and the disorientations of social and economic change.

Beijing Bicycle, by the director Xiaoshuai Wang, is an example of the most recent wave of film-making in China. These films tend to have the gritty underground atmosphere of low budgets and handheld cameras (don't expect Hollywood!) -- using both style and content to generate a sense of subtly subverting state censorship.

This genre of film is also more individualistic and anti-romantic than the previous generation of Chinese films that were acclaimed in the 1990s. These changes and differences in the spectrum of Chinese films are perhaps a testimony to the diversity and dynamism of cultural sensibilities in contemporary China.