Beijing Bicycle

When you read a synopsis of Beijing Bicycle, it may remind you of Vittorio de Sica's 1948 masterpiece The Bicycle Thieves. A poor man, having recently come to the city from the country, wins a job at a bicycle courier business, and, on a delivery, gets his bike stolen. He then proceeds to search the city of Beijing to retrieve it. Luckily, it quickly veers away from being a simple update of that classic story. He finds the alleged thief, a high school kid, and steals it back. For the first hour or more, the bike moves back and forth between them. The two characters are compared and contrasted, and it works as an effective class study.

The direction and editing are particularly great in the film. The climax involves two intersecting chases, and it is one of the best stages sequences I've ever seen. There are a couple of problems, small ones for me, but perhaps big ones for critics and audiences. The high school kid is extraordinarily unlikable. A person behind me declared loudly, "What a brat!" And he is. I personally don't mind if a character is unsympathetic (although we are asked to sympathize with him, I believe). My own biggest problem is that the ending is slightly unsatisfactory. There's not much closure. Still, Beijing Bicycle is an excellent film. 9/10.

"Beijing Bicycle" (Chinese, 2002): This is one of the purest films I've seen all year. Don't believe the blurb written about it: two boys learn sharing through the use of one bicycle. The blurb couldn't be MORE WRONG. This story has one of the smoothest, most linear, singularly focused goals I've experienced in a film along with "The Field", which I rewatched earlier this year. There are no plot twists, no what-ifs, no "oh my god, I had no idea THAT was happening!" moments. "Beijing Bicycle" is a simple, yet symbolic film about a young man who comes to the big city, gets a job as a bicycle messenger, and things quickly go from uncomfortable, to bad, to awful, to worse it seems. "Guei" (the messenger) wasn't raised to recognize the ways of a metropolis, which tries to chew him up piece by piece. We get to "know" other characters who we believe (along with Guei) ARE who they appear to be. "Beijing Bicycle" has to be the finest expression of what I would expect to be the current set of fears by those in China who see their future as an unknown, with the "replacement model" being the U.S.A.. This story expresses the huge doubts caused by the loss of Mao and the Communist way of life. Even if it WASN'T perfect, they were familiar with it, and many of these "new world" things did not happen THEN. Those who are (literally) "buying" into the free market concepts, are losing their pride, identities, and souls. Watch for the slow, steady transitions of situations and characters. Watch for the symbols of decadence, greed, unhealthy living, improper greed, corruption, and sadness – all within a small group of teens.

"Beijing Bicycle" has a superficial similarity to "The Bicycle Thief," a true classic, but it presents a darker and deeper story. Set in Beijing it tracks the efforts of a young man from the countryside to find his self-sufficient place in a bustling and rawly energetic city. For him, obtaining a position as a bicycle messenger for a company serving the commercial firms of the city seems to be a satisfactory end, not a beginning as it probably would be were this film set in a Western metropolis.

For a New Yorker, where bicycle messengers are simultaneously often hated and frequently and with good measure feared, the operation of the Beijing counterpart, with messengers uniformly attired and equipped with identical mountain bikes, is both strange and familiar.

Central to the film is the theft of the coveted bicycle one day before it would become the personal property of the messenger (the company's scheme allows employees to earn ownership after what appears to be a short period of service). The bike turns up in the hands of a post-high school youth, part of a loose gang of bicycle worshipers. Much of the story revolves around the subsequent relay race of seizures of the bike with attendant and escalating violence.

The intensity of the competition between two young men for the bike reflects its importance not only economically (bikes appear in huge numbers in wide shots of broad avenues and busy streets) but also personally. These young men probably don't even have nocturnal fantasies of car ownership.

A wary but real bond develops between the suitors for bike ownership and the violence that engulfs them is palpably real and painful to watch. There is no real resolution for either of them it seems.

"Beijing Bicycle" would have benefited from some judicious editing and the deletion of an extraneous secondary story line (or two) that detracts from the main tale. The score is very nice and the acting strong. This is not the Beijing of Tianamen Square or of the flourishing fast food outlets. It is, however, a Beijing that has a number of striking similarities to neighborhoods known to many of us. And in that lies the film's interest and attractiveness.

I really enjoyed watching this film for a second time recently. A story of a young peasant from the outskirts of town (Beijing) struggle against societal oppositions, finding work, keeping bike from preying thieves, and learning survival skills. Beijing is not an easy town to tame!

At times very funny! At times very violent, makes you want to turn your head in disgust. The violence is to prove a point. No good comes from it, whatsoever!

I think this film is well made. The pace is smooth. The acting is superb. I especially like the acting of the employer who hires the main character as a messenger boy. He is what you would call a prudent business man with heart!

Please take some time out of your day and watch this tense movie with moralistic themes: rich versus poor, right versus wrong, bullying versus stubbornness. A winner in my book!

A bit irritating at times and certainly not a regular fare even for those used to Asian movies. The story revolves around ideas of going up the social ladder... about how material goods can change your status, and what can happen due to greed.

The main character a peasant from the countryside finds himself in the "wild" urban enviroment and all its impersonal aggresiveness. The big city is unforgiving. The way the main characters tend to react to otherwise incredibly hard situations with silence sure is different from western standards.

Overall a beautiful movie with some very good scenes... still slow at times and could have been better 7 in 10.