A sensitive, modest comic tragedy that works as both character
study and symbolic examination of the huge economic changes sweeping
modern China, the film owes some kind of debt to that granddaddy of
any two-wheeled social study, Vittorio De Sica's neo-realist
masterpiece "The Bicycle Thief." But considering how the bike is
even more integral to Chinese urban life than it was to survival in
postwar Italy, Wang Xiaoshuai's movie quite naturally stands on its
own two tires.
The simple yet richly worked-out narrative begins on the happy
day when Guei (Cui Lin), a newcomer to the capital from a rural
village, lands his first serious job. Hired by a big courier
company, he's issued a snazzy new mountain bike and told that, if he
works hard, he'll earn enough money to buy it for his very own.
Guei gets right down to business, pedaling madly around the
growing city's contrasting economic zones, giving himself (and us)
an eye-opening tour of China's hit-and-miss transition from a
socialist system to capitalism. But just as he's about to purchase
the bike that represents everything about his personal achievement,
it gets stolen. Guei's career -- and his suddenly revealed-to-be
delicate psyche -- subsequently suffers a paralyzing flat.
We then meet local schoolboy Jian (Li Bin), who has
surreptitiously come into possession of Guei's wheels (which he
later claims to have bought at a flea market; the film remains
noncommittal as to whether he actually stole it or not). Jian lives
in an alleyway tenement with his father, stepmother and smart little
stepsister, whose schooling has just commandeered the family savings
that were earmarked to buy Jian a bike.
Unknown to them, Jian's ill-gotten ride allows him to keep up
with his already rolling gang of friends, and even attracts the
attention of a pretty, wealthy girl, Qin (Zhou Xun). Though utterly
different in particulars, it is every bit as cherished a status
symbol as it was for its previous user.
When an obsessive Guei tracks Jian down, a series of
back-and-forth bikenappings, intimidations and reluctant
accommodations ensue. There are numerous conniptions and much
crying, which indicates that traditional notions of Chinese reserve
are about as outdated as Mao's Little Red Book nowadays. But just at
the point where city boy and country lad grudgingly learn to respect
the chain that binds them, that darn bike leads to even worse
trouble.
While he cannot boast the pictorial brilliance that we associate
with China's best filmmakers, Wang employs his urban settings
evocatively enough, culminating with a kinetically thrilling, deadly
chase through a maze of tumbledown shacks, dead-end courtyards and
paths no newcomer can hope to navigate. "Beijing Bicycle" presents
an apt metaphor for a culture that's barreling unstoppably forward
with only the vaguest notion of where things are actually going.
From
Los Angeles Newspaper Group
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