Pickpocket

I have seen the movie,but the quality of videotape is very bad,and cause the conversation is shangxi(a north province in china),so thought i am a chinese,i can't hardly hear it clearly.speak generelly,this movie reflect ture life condition in small town of china.many of people in town like xiaowu liang had been influenced deep by pop culture from Hongkong or China itself.and xiaowu is a poor low class in China.we are laughing when the movie play,but we are also shocked after the movie over.

A 20-something in rural China who makes his small time living being a pickpocket faces two changes which pressure his life: a very public crackdown on crime, and a childhood friend having moved on to a respectable life, soon to be married, but not inviting him to the wedding. China itself seems to be changing, with signs of construction and modernization everywhere, but the main character, Xiao Wu (Wang Hongwei) is not progressing along with it, stubbornly sticking to his ways, despite the warnings from others.

There is a sense of forlorn emptiness here, as Xiao Wu starts falling for a karaoke girl, desperately seeking more meaning out of their relationship than she is. He returns home to his family, who are peasant farmers, and finds that his brothers are also moving on in life, and his father is angry to the point of casting him out. There are glimmers of him wanting to be a good person, like when he gives his mother a ring, or when he anonymously returns ID cards from the wallets he's stolen because they're hard for the owners to replace, but he continues stealing and seems hopelessly non-aspirational, thus making him a tough character to like.

Gandhi once said that "the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members," and while you could argue that Xiao Wu himself has preyed on the vulnerable, when he's publicly chastised on TV and later handcuffed to a post and surrounded by people gawking at him, the feeling of vulnerability is intense. We get the conflicting sense of it being just for him to punished, but at the same time, pity for him arriving at this place in life, and what his prospects might be. Therein lies the power of the film, and I certainly admired it.

The reason for not giving the film a higher rating was just a lack of personal enjoyment for what was a dreary story, centered exclusively on the main character, who was stuck in one gear. I would have loved a contrast in the development of his friend's or family's characters, those getting on in the world as best they can. Certainly a solid debut film from Jia Zhangke though.

Xiaowu is an average young man in a typical small town in China. He is shy, stubborn, values friendship, sometimes vanity-driven, sometimes even romantic. And he is a pick-pocket.

It is surprising that although hundreds of millions of people lead their lives like xiaowu, "Xiao Wu" is the first candid depiction of their life in the many years of chinese filmmaking. I was particularly struck by the camera's honesty: run-down buildings along littered streets, filthy public bath places, hidden brothels camouflaged as karaoke shops...

As the country opens up for economical changes, some people have "their own ways" to take advantage of the change and became rich, while the rest struggle to make a living. The film provided vivid portraits of people you probably know or have heard of: the former pick-pocket buddy of xiaowu who became a famous entrepreneur and grew ashamed of having a friend who picks pockets; the girl who works at a Karaoke but tells her mom that she's at school, who dreams of becoming a star and fell in love with xiaowu but eventually "contracted" herself to a rich man from Shan Xi...

Even if you are not particularly interested in the setting of the film, the universal conflict of dignity and making a living, vanity and friendship, dream and reality, makes this film very interesting to watch.

Bravo, Jia ZhangKe! I give this film a 10/10 for being the first of a genre that will shine in chinese cinema.

Xiao Wu is to me an incredible lively film.It's like the viewer is totally a part of the scenes he is seeing.the director is a genius in giving you the real-life sense.The raw way of the photography gives you an honest picture of a certain time in China's history... we follow a petty thief Xiau Wu in his 'struggle 'to survive.... everyone around him , his mates from the scenes have all sworn off their criminal pasts and are on the road to be normal citizens...not Xia Wu however.He seems not to be able to break with his 'old'life. What this film shows us in an incredible way to is a piece of Recent Chinese history...the emerging of private enterprise...filmed in the mid 90-ies we as viewers are made very much part of these developments. an excellent and very capturing film in every way ! great job done by the all amateur actors cast.Zhang Ke Jia did an unique job here !

Unlike a lot of other contemporary Chinese films, Xiao Wu succeeds in gaining viewers empathy for the title character. We never really find out how the so-called "artisan pickpocket" got himself into the state he's in; it's almost as if he woke up one morning to find that he was alone and jobless at an age when he should be settling down like all of his friends. However, not knowing how he arrived at this point makes his growing desperation more tangible as we see him reaching out to everyone he can, only to be rejected.

Wang Hongwei is amazing as the title character, he makes it easy to relate to the character's loneliness and longing. Considering the actors in Xiao Wu are all amateurs, Wang's performance is even more amazing. Granted, he was given a great character to work with: in spite of his occupation, Xiao Wu is a nice guy. (His beautifully awkward relationship with the karaoke hostess is a fine example of this).

All in all, I think this is one of the best Chinese films from the past decade. The characters are better developed than in other contemporary films, and the story is neither contrived nor simplistic. Xiao Wu would seem to be a lot more accessible than other Chinese art films because it lacks the slow bits characteristic of that genre. I would highly recommend Xiao Wu to anyone interested in Chinese cinema.