Unknown Pleasures

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Film Description

A side of China not usually seen - economically depressed with bored teenagers looking for meaning in a world that privileges the few that can take the benefits of neo-liberal policies, and leaves the rest with the same old problems.

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Review by Howard Schumann on 29th September 2003

Jia Zhangke's Unknown Pleasures is a powerful depiction of the spiritual malaise afflicting Chinese youth as a result of global capitalism. The film is set in a small, impoverished Chinese city in the remote Shanxi province close to the Mongolian border. Two 19-year olds Bin Bin (Zhao Wei Wei) and Xiao Ji (Wu Qiong) live on the margins in a city where, according to the director, two-thirds of the population were unemployed in 2001. They drink Coke, chain smoke cigarettes, covet U.S. dollars, talk excitedly about Hollywood movies such as Pulp Fiction, and dance to Western-style music at the local club. Apathetic and disengaged, with no job and nothing to do, the two friends hang around the local community center playing pool and chatting with the regulars. After trying out for an acting job, Xiao Ji becomes attracted to Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao) whose protective lover is a gangster named Quiao San. Xiao follows her around but seems unable or unwilling to make a move.


Bin Bin also has a girlfriend, Yuan Yuan (Zhou Qing Feng), but their romance seems to consist only in watching movies in a hotel room. Although Jia focuses on the boys as victims of social and economic dislocation in China, the theme is more about feelings of abandonment, loneliness, and emotional numbness. The film captures this sense of ennui more palpably than any movie I've seen in a long time. When Xiao finally abandons his sputtering motor bike in the middle of a new superhighway, Jia seems to be suggesting that both he and China itself are at a precarious crossroads in their existence and must discard what isn't working if they are to move on.

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