In the rundown city of Datong (population 3.3 million), we get to know a handful of depressed teenagers and their equally unhappy parents.
The males in this film tend to smoke, drink, and spend a lot of time loafing and milling around. It's the women who do the work, but get disrespected and have a hard time getting paid.
Everywhere, there's a boxy TV -- blaring inane cartoons or news of the latest crime -- be it sabotage at the textile mill, which killed 46, or the confession of a gun-and-ammo-toting ne'er-do-well.
In this third feature film of Jia JiangKe, of the "Sixth generation" of Chinese filmmakers, who made their movies without government support, we encounter a China where traditional customs are giving way to highly questionable values of the West.
Gou Bin Bin (Wei Wei Zhao) is 19 and old enough to be pulling his weight, but he quit his job at a produce store after a fight with his boss -- "I didn't like his face." He lives off his mother (Ru Bai) , a Falun Gong adherent, but scorns her ("Don't mind her -- she's old"). His best friend, Xiao Ji (Qiong Wu), is also jobless. Like a puppy, he follows Qiao Qiao (Tao Zhao), an alternately haughty and anhedonic dancer who lapses into prostitution ("I'm too expensive for you -- go away!"). As if blind to his own flaws, Xiao Ji tells his father he should be ashamed of himself (for trying to cash a US dollar at the wrong bank), and warns him he'll hear about it at home.
We see many dates during which Bin Bin and his girlfriend -- who listens to her parents and nixes premarital sex -- sit stiffly in a cramped, rented room, as the TV blares. Their lack of symbiosis parallels the rift in China's personality, as old-school values clash with bourgeois influences from America.
Bin Bin's mother is fed up with him -- what mom in any country wouldn't be?
"No work today?" she asks.
"You haven't left yet?" he mutters.
"Join the army and go far away!"
"Always down on me -- you'll see!"
The military rejects Bin. (Whether his hepatitis diagnosis is real, or just the establishment's payback for his mother's religious leanings, is unclear.) "What's so great about a long life?" Xiao Ji asks. "Thirty years is enough."
With their horizons limited, they come up with an ill-conceived escape plan, straight from the US silver screen.
This movie ends with a song, but on a very unsettling note.
The males in this film tend to smoke, drink, and spend a lot of time loafing and milling around. It's the women who do the work, but get disrespected and have a hard time getting paid.
Everywhere, there's a boxy TV -- blaring inane cartoons or news of the latest crime -- be it sabotage at the textile mill, which killed 46, or the confession of a gun-and-ammo-toting ne'er-do-well.
In this third feature film of Jia JiangKe, of the "Sixth generation" of Chinese filmmakers, who made their movies without government support, we encounter a China where traditional customs are giving way to highly questionable values of the West.
Gou Bin Bin (Wei Wei Zhao) is 19 and old enough to be pulling his weight, but he quit his job at a produce store after a fight with his boss -- "I didn't like his face." He lives off his mother (Ru Bai) , a Falun Gong adherent, but scorns her ("Don't mind her -- she's old"). His best friend, Xiao Ji (Qiong Wu), is also jobless. Like a puppy, he follows Qiao Qiao (Tao Zhao), an alternately haughty and anhedonic dancer who lapses into prostitution ("I'm too expensive for you -- go away!"). As if blind to his own flaws, Xiao Ji tells his father he should be ashamed of himself (for trying to cash a US dollar at the wrong bank), and warns him he'll hear about it at home.
We see many dates during which Bin Bin and his girlfriend -- who listens to her parents and nixes premarital sex -- sit stiffly in a cramped, rented room, as the TV blares. Their lack of symbiosis parallels the rift in China's personality, as old-school values clash with bourgeois influences from America.
Bin Bin's mother is fed up with him -- what mom in any country wouldn't be?
"No work today?" she asks.
"You haven't left yet?" he mutters.
"Join the army and go far away!"
"Always down on me -- you'll see!"
The military rejects Bin. (Whether his hepatitis diagnosis is real, or just the establishment's payback for his mother's religious leanings, is unclear.) "What's so great about a long life?" Xiao Ji asks. "Thirty years is enough."
With their horizons limited, they come up with an ill-conceived escape plan, straight from the US silver screen.
This movie ends with a song, but on a very unsettling note.