This movie is quite typical which reminds me of several other Chinese movies, like “In the Heat of the Sun”, etc. “Beijing Bicycle” is banned in China main land probably because it truly reveals the social conflicts in China. Some violence is also involved.
The movie gives us a good picture of what Beijing is like. It is an old city with modern architecture. Here the old and the new can coexist well which makes the city very unique. It’s definitely one of the fastest developing cities in the world. The speed of change surprises me every time when I went back to China. It changed most significantly during the year 2008 due to the Olympics. There are so many building under construction. When you are in the city, you can feel by yourself that the city is booming every day.
“Beijing Bicycle”, however, reminds us that, besides the skyscrapers, there are also people under poverty living in little brick houses. The seventeen-year-old Gui is one of those people from outside Beijing. He finds a job from a courier company and is promised that he will own his new bike after he earns six hundred RMB. He works really hard, but when his dream is about to come true, his bike is lost. Gui drops into desperation.
On the other side of the story, Xian is a school boy from Beijng who is the same age as Gui. Because of a poor family background, he feels inferior sometimes though acting proud. After his father misses his words for several times, and also as a way to win “face” in front of his friends, Xian steals money from his family and buys a second hand bike. He doesn’t know the bike is actually the one that Gui lost. The story approaches a climax when Gui finds out the bike he lives on is “stolen” by Xian. He tries his best to get his precious back, and there starts the struggle between the two boys who are trying to guard their own dreams.
The movie gives us a good picture of what Beijing is like. It is an old city with modern architecture. Here the old and the new can coexist well which makes the city very unique. It’s definitely one of the fastest developing cities in the world. The speed of change surprises me every time when I went back to China. It changed most significantly during the year 2008 due to the Olympics. There are so many building under construction. When you are in the city, you can feel by yourself that the city is booming every day.
“Beijing Bicycle”, however, reminds us that, besides the skyscrapers, there are also people under poverty living in little brick houses. The seventeen-year-old Gui is one of those people from outside Beijing. He finds a job from a courier company and is promised that he will own his new bike after he earns six hundred RMB. He works really hard, but when his dream is about to come true, his bike is lost. Gui drops into desperation.
On the other side of the story, Xian is a school boy from Beijng who is the same age as Gui. Because of a poor family background, he feels inferior sometimes though acting proud. After his father misses his words for several times, and also as a way to win “face” in front of his friends, Xian steals money from his family and buys a second hand bike. He doesn’t know the bike is actually the one that Gui lost. The story approaches a climax when Gui finds out the bike he lives on is “stolen” by Xian. He tries his best to get his precious back, and there starts the struggle between the two boys who are trying to guard their own dreams.
The movie can be defined as a movie of youth, but it also explores some other social issues. A small portion of people in Beijing are not only physically poor, but also mentally stressed. They struggle hard to fit in the city life, but most of the times they feel unwelcome and even receive discrimination from other social class. People under such status deserve more care from the society and that is what the director trying to tell us here. The boy from the countryside, the school boy, the babysitter, the grocery store owner, and the boss of the courier company actually share a common destiny, but are only presented in different ways.
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Although skyscrapers have taken place of the flat houses, and narrow dirt roads have given way to wide asphat express ways. There are always a small of number of people living under poverty line. Beijing Bicycle is a symbol for those very few people. Well written, clear and terse!
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