Xiao Wu
The film's setting carried its own significance. Like in "Xiao Wu", "Unknown Pleasures" takes place in a run down industry town in China's Shanxi province. Whereas the earlier film ended with the destruction of a city block, in "Unknown Pleasures", the entire city of Datong seems to be in a state of disrepair and ruin. Jia noted in an interview that in one sense, Datong was "truly a city in ruins, and the people that inhabit it very much live in a spiritual world that reflects their environment." In contrast to Datong, the film paints Beijing as a dream world. Bin Bin's girlfriend, the only character with real ambitions and goals, is trying to get to Beijing in order to attend university. Meanwhile, when Beijing is selected as the host city for the 2008 Olympics, a crowd of people gathered around a television burst into cheers. Towards the end of the film, a newscast states that the Datong-Beijing Highway is soon to be completed, hinting that escape and progress are not far behind. For Jia, however, the depiction of the provincial town only highlights "the gap between rich and poor" and the gap between the image of cities like Shanghai and Beijing as depicted on television, and the lives of those who live in cities like Datong. For these characters, Beijing is the "Moscow of "Three Sisters"-- dreamland as a receding horizon."