Shiqi sui de dan che
Tags: bleak, realism

Plot synopsis:
Guei (played by Cui Lin) is a seventeen-year-old country boy who came to Beijing to make a living. Along with a number of other boys from the country, Guei finds employment with a courier company, which assigns them brand-new bicycles for use in their deliveries. The company manager (Xie Jian) announces to them that since the bicycles do not yet belong to them, they will only earn twenty percent of the commission. But once they have made enough deliveries to earn the bicycles, their share will be raised to fifty percent. Within two months Guei has made enough to earn his bicycle. However, on the day that Guei is due to take over the ownership, the bicycle is stolen while he is picking up a document. The manager fires Guei for neglecting to deliver the package, but, upon the latter's pleas, agrees to take him back if he succeeds in recovering his bicycle.
At the other end of the city, Jian (Li Bin) is a seventeen-year-old schoolboy who longs for a bicycle of his own so he can ride with Xiao (Gao Yuanyuan), the girl he fancies. His hopes are dashed when his father (Zhao Yiwei) delays buying a bicycle for him yet again so that his younger stepsister Rong Rong (Zhou Fanfei) can go to a prestigious school. This frustrates Jian, who steals some money from his family and pays 500 yuan to a second-hand dealer for a bicycle—the one that used to belong to Guei.
Meanwhile, the stubborn Guei embarks on a search for his bicycle. By chance, his friend Mantis (Liu Lei) spots Jian with the bicycle. Guei tries to make off with the bicycle but is stopped by Jian and his gang of schoolboys. The determined Guei follows Jian home and steals back the bicycle from where Jian hides it. The manager keeps his promise and takes Guei back. However, when Guei shows up at the courier company on another day, he finds Jian and his gang waiting for him. He tries to escape but the gang chases him down and, after giving him a beating, forcibly re-takes the bicycle.
When Jian returns home, he finds his father waiting for him at the door, along with Guei. Thinking that his son was the bicycle thief, the enraged father gives Jian a rapping and lets Guei take his bicycle. However, Jian and his gang track down Guei again the next day and after long hours of negotiation, the two sides reach a pact: Guei and Jian are to share the bicycle, each entitled to the use of it on alternate days. This arrangement persists for some days until Jian finds out that Xiao has fallen for Da Huan (Li Shuang), a bicycle freestylist. Jian hits his rival with a brick and rides off.
At their usual meeting place, Jian hands the bicycle to Guei and tells the latter that he does not need it any more. Meanwhile, Da Huan, along with his gang, comes after Jian on their bikes. Jian and Guei make off together but are cornered by Da Huan and his gang, who give both of them a serious beating. As the gang leaves, one member stays behind to wreck Guei's bicycle. In a rare burst of rage, Guei picks up a brick and smashes the head of his attacker, who collapses. Carrying his battered bicycle on his shoulder, Guei walks back alone.

Review: Beijing Bicycle, on the other hand, can serve as an instructional manual for any high-school bully wannabes on how to reduce the stammering geek next door to a shell of a man.It's therefore understandable that the movie can be very difficult to watch at moments.
Beijing Bicycle by Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai is an unsettling look at modern China in transition that depicts the relationship between two young men of different social status, both yearning for acceptance and stubbornly determined to succeed.
Guei (Cui Lin) is an unexpressive working class 17-year old who has come to Beijing to find work, while Jian (Li Bin), is a sophisticated middle-class student, desperate to belong, seeking approval from his biker friends and his beautiful girlfriend Gin (Zhao Yiwel).
The film explores the consequences when Guei's bicycle is stolen and ends up in Jian's hands.
The film is about the bicycle but is also about the city of Beijing.
With an original score by Felix Wang and magnificent cinematography by Jie Liu, the city comes alive with streets littered with traffic juxtaposed with mysterious alleys where old men play board games or do Tai Chi. Wang adds the little touches as well such as two friends sharing a toothbrush and a single spigot of water in an alley serving an entire neighborhood.Like De Sica's The Bicycle Thief, the stolen bicycle is central to the story, but here it is not about the hunt but about the consequences that follow from its recovery.
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.
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.
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 details of Beijing life we see may or may not "develop character" or "advance the story", but they're worth watching all by themselves, and Wang only includes those details which he correctly senses are not out of place.
I even got a sense of why so many people were willing to align themselves with Qin (the one who either stole the bicycle from Guo or bought it from the real thief with stolen money - we're never entirely certain), even though he comes across as perhaps the least worthwhile person in the world.
We get a strong sense of the society in which all of these people live and of how the world must appeal to them.And even though there may be no "closure" at the end - although I don't know what "closure" is and I suspect that people who use the word probably don't either - few films are quite as satisfying..
Beijing Bicycle is certainly a layered movie that can be read at many levels.
The result of his aphasia, on the other hand, is more self-evident: at the end of the movie, Gui eventually turns to violence to break his silence It is said that at least 60% of the crime that happens in Chinese cities comes from the floating population.
While watching this movie I couldn't help but be reminded of The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette).
One works hard for a bicycle courier and on the day he would have earned the bike, it is stolen.
"Beijing Bicycle" (Chinese, 2002): This is one of the purest films I've seen all year.
"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.
A stolen bicycle leads two boys from one sad situation to another, and Wang lets those situations determine the film's form, rather than using deliberate techniques to give it shape.
Personally, while I appreciate the respectful approach to the film's inspiration, I wish Wang would have really cut loose with some radical new take on `Ladri,' as Tim Burton did with his masterpiece, `Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.'  As it is, `Shiqi sui de dan che' left me a little bit cold; it was all done is good taste, but the result was curiously lifeless.
It's almost as if they feel sorry for the characters in it, so they feel sorry for a movie that was just OK.The story was OK, the directing was OK, the acting was OK, so I'm still wondering what is it that's making people vote a high rating for this movie?
Wang Xiaoshuai is grouped with the sixth generation Chinese directors led by Jia Zhangke and Jiang Wen. He is also clearly influenced by Italian Neo-realism as evidenced by the plots much noted similarity to De Sicca's Bicycle Thief.
This combination of influences has created a style which some have proclaimed innovative but which to a seasoned viewer of world cinema is derivative, generic and actually shot in a very workmanlike style without any particular framing ability, brio or gift for mise en scene.The premise of this movie could have led to an interesting examination of modern china, but the writers seemed unable to find any realistic way to bring about this premise.
Once the relationship between country boy and city poor is established the contrast between their lives is not used to say or show anything of interest but instead the director opts for fallacious pieces of symbolism to show their "innate similarity".The movie has been praised for gritty realism in showing the life of the Chinese poor, but it is actually incredibly false.
The movie also cops out by having every single character speaking putonghwa - very unlikely.Finally, the acting is poor and unnaturalistic and every plot point drawn out for melodramatic effect.
"Beijing Bicycle" the interesting Chinese film directed by Xiaoshuai Wang, has been compared with Vittorio DeSica's masterpiece of the Italian cinema, "Bicycle Thief".
In fact, we suspect this director is telling a story that seems to mirror the other film, but it's Chinese to the core.Young Guo, who has arrived in Beijing from a rural area, is hired as a messenger for an agency that delivers important packages and mail throughout the city.
The bicycle for Guo means the improvement of his lot in life, as well as freedom to go everywhere and be his own master.Jian, on the other hand, is a student that is seen hanging out with a rough bunch of school mates.
The film doesn't make clear if Jian himself steals the bicycle, or as he claims, he bought it at the second hand market, with the money he stole from his father, which seems to be the case.
In fact, Jian shows a stubbornness himself that is unusual for a city boy that should have known better and who should have realized the plight of Guo."Beijing Bicycle" shows a side of city living in a city that is crowded and can be cruel to anyone trying to make a life in a decent way.
We watch at the end a defeated Guo walking with his mangled bicycle on his way back home, perhaps.The film will not disappoint, in spite of some repetitious sequences thanks to the strength of the two principals and the direction by Xiaoshuai Wang..
This kind of plot is easy to poach if not always that easy to bring off but Xiaoshuai Wang manages it beautifully helped by a couple of wonderfully naturalistic performances from Lin Cui as the young courier whose bicycle is stolen and from Bin Li as the young thief, as well as by the superb cinematography of Jie Liu. This time the plot is less predictable and handled with a touch more humor than you might expect.
It's also a great 'city' film with Wang handling the milieu of a large, and to Western eyes, a virtually unknown metropolis with all the brio of a Lumet but also with a freshness of approach and, like Lumet, he manages to balance the comic and the tragic in equally brilliant measure.
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.
I especially like the acting of the employer who hires the main character as a messenger boy.
One careful look at maverick sixth generation Chinese film director Wang Xiaoshuai's filmography will easily suggest that "Beijing Bicycle" is one of the best commercial films he has directed in his decade and a half old career.This is a film which has tremendously huge mass appeal as people all over the world prefer bicycles as environmental friendly means of transport.This has perhaps been a reason why this film was banned by Chinese authorities upon its initial release in 2001.A lot has changed in China ever since this film came out but it is still easy to comprehend natural fascination of Chinese people for bicycles.It is a different matter that this craze for bicycles is getting lost into oblivion as world's major car manufacturers are busy eying Chinese automobile market."Beijing Bicycle" has succeeded in revealing behavioral traits of young Chinese boys who are capable of outsmarting their western counterparts as far as bad,irresponsible,illogical behavior is concerned.There is absolutely no point in comparing "Beijing Bicycle" with Italian Neorealist classic "Ladri Di Biciclette" directed by Italian master Vittorio De Sica as both films are set in quite different cultural contexts.It is a mere coincidence that they have a bicycle as a common element..
Jian - forced down the road of no return for his dishonest and infatuation for Qin.Straying from any typical movie with a storyline leading to a happy ending - the sense of despair for Gui becomes greater as the story unfolds.
`BEIJING BICYCLE'Victor Bloom MD`Beijing Bicycle' has been compared to Vittorio de Sica's `The Bicycle Thief,' a classic of decades ago, but this film is a landmark classic that raises the bar on movies about poverty and the city.
The director, Wang, is being called a 6th generation Chinese film director, from a long tradition of great movie-making despite the political censorship inherent in communist China.
It is clear that Chinese entrepreneurs are beginning to accumulate great wealth as capitalistic enterprises are being not only tolerated, but encouraged by the old guard, who are realizing the tremendous economic potential of a billion energetic and hardworking people.Since China is becoming more open and industrialized, not to mention technologically sophisticated,  the powers that be are showing off with this stunning film.
Therefore, the movie is a great bargain because in less than two hours the viewer is exposed to cinema art at its highest level, with a synthesis of a classic story, one dramatic situation after another, subtle and powerful acting, original and creative cinematography, tied together with a pounding and relentless soundtrack that keeps the forward motion escalating to the very end.The Shakespearean plot is mindful of `Romeo and Juliet' and `West Side Story.'  The protagonists are teenagers, but the story is such that this over-used American term simply does not apply.
Instead of motorcycle gangs, the rich boys ride their daredevil bikes up the high stories of construction sites.If you know anything about Beijing, it is a city of millions of bikes, swarming like taxis in New York.
`Try Zhou Yimou' is the inside joke, as that is the name of the director's mentor, the Great Zhou.The bicycle messenger is a stubborn lad from the country and gets caught in a revolving door and into the machinations of the new posh living, and thus we are caught in the never-ending struggle between wealth and poverty, sophistication and ignorance.
No need to go into the details of the story--- suffice it to say it is a gripping one, a coming together of age-old irresolveable conflict, that of young men looking for romance and poor people looking for a better life.
Impossible not to have some Italian classic film while watching this movie as it used again the theme of the stolen bicycle.
For a very simple perspective, this as an interesting story that shows the changing society in China and contrasts that urban and rural cultures.
That is the emotion happening with "Beijing Bicycle".Could I watch this film again?
They should watch this movie to see how the reality of the situation actually is.The movie paints a modern portrait of the emerging China, with sky scrapers and yuppie elite juxtaposed with the dirt poor country folks and the urban beggars trying to make ends meat in this city of contrasts.This movie can work as a case study for modern China, as it contains many biting satirical scenes depicting the unfair economics and distribution of wealth in China, for example, how a simple bicycle - which are a dime a dozen in the west - is used as a down payment for the couriers and is then fought over by the two protagonists for the rest of the movie.
Having never seen the original Italian movie The Bicycle Thief on which this film is based, I am unsure of how to compare the two, but Beijing Bicycle, remake or not, is very good.
Like in the old times.This is a good movie, there you in the beginning are quite clear of which guy is nice and which isn't.
I don't think that the country boy would be willing to ride with them all together into that desolate place.China has made quite a few youth oriented movies about modern teenagers' life.
The film Beijing Bicycle is about a man from the rural country coming into the city and finding a job as a bicycle courier, he loses the bike that he finally paid off and gets fired for losing track of the whole day and not delivering his important package.
This goes on back and forth until they come to a compromise, but a climatic ending ensues when a third party comes into the picture and destroy both of their dreams.I found this movie very provoking, touching on subject of modern china, where in the case of the rural migrant, his livelihood depended on the bicycle, while for the kid that took it, it is a vanity item that is a must have in order to be cool and get the girl.
The extraordinary step each one takes to get the bike, from roaming the streets for days looking at each and every one of the millions of bikes out there, to the stealing of the parents money that was meant for the daughter's tuition, shows how desperate each member of the society is willing to go through to survive in this big city in their own way.It highlights the plight of migrants and their desires to climb up the ladder of modern china, one minute brushing their teeth with their finger in the streets, the next, spying on a girl in a high rise apartment that is trying on different dresses, who turns out to be another peasant migrant working as a maid, trying out her employer's dresses behind her back.The ignorant stubbornness is show here again, much like the character in `Not One Less', where they refuse to give up, but at the same time, don't know what actions to take.
It must be a rural type of characteristics.Even the ending signifies how the modern world provides inequities, no matter how much you try, with the kid's girlfriend being wooed away by another biker who knows how to perform greater tricks, the kid, being a city kid, does not take the ignorant stubbornness approach, instead goes for the ill-thought confrontational path, only to have revenge taken upon him and the rural migrant by the other biker and his bully gang, resulting in them being beaten up and the bike, which the two have come to share, be destroyed.
I liked Beijing Bicycle...but, then again, I am a sucker for most foreign films, particularly Asian films ...but unlike most Chinese films....this one seemed to meander and I guess I kind of compared it to What Time is it Over There, though Taiwainese..but I saw that last week and really found that more cinematic, more interesting and involving.
much like the boy here attempting to recover and re-recover his bike.So, I'm glad I saw it but I feel that way about most foreign films I have seen.....
But in the end we see each of them battered and bruised, the trio of Guo, Jian and the Beijing Bicycle - last camera shot focusing on the latter, busted-up, a booby prize floating through crowded streets...
Beijing Bicycle is a simple story of two teenage boys and a bicycle.
*SPOILERS*  Jian lives in urban Beijing and for him the bike provides status and a sense of belonging.
Guo has come from a rural area to Beijing and finds work as a courier.
The ensuing struggle over the bike is entertaining and I found it easy to get emotionally attached to the characters, in particular Guo. The young actors in this movie are superb and the score is beautiful.
But to join this gang the city boy must first acquire a bicycle, which he does by stealing money from his father.
The other boy needs the bicycle to win the heart of a girl interested in him.