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.
Review of Unknown Pleasures
