Beijing Bicycle

Rating:
Summary: BEIJING BICYCLE
Review: I identified strongly with the struggle of the two teenagers, which took the concrete form of fighting over the bicycle. There was one scene in which the middle class boy and his gang struggled to wrest the bicycle from the peasant boy's grip, but after hours of struggle, they were unable to. Somehow it was understood that they would not kill the boy and so the peasant boy hung on to it by sheer grit and determination, which as portrayed seemed almost superhuman.

Somehow, knowing the Chinese (communist) mentality to a degree, I knew there had to be a strong underlying message, and sure enough, it came through to me that was this---- that peasant strength was more than equal to the more effete efforts of the middle class, the bourgeoisie. The message went beyond the ideological, but was also strongly socio-economic and psychological; the peasant boy's motivation for advancement, opportunity and freedom from poverty, was stronger than the middle class boy's motivation, merely to have a bicycle with which to impress his girlfriend and keep up with his peers.

The middle class boy was shown to be a liar and a thief, disrespectful of his hardworking father. His rage was somehow understandable as his sibling, a younger sister, was seen as getting more advantage in schooling. The father promised the son a bicycle, but instead spent the money on a private school for the girl. That was a typical middle class family conflict, not as serious or severe as the peasant boy's drive to escape poverty. The bicycle was his key to financial independence, while for the middle class boy, he stole the bike and lied about it, a moral weakness which came from his 'easy' life and relative indulgence.

Another political message came through subliminally, that the middle class boy didn't deserve the bike because he was morally corrupt. It is as if being middle class automatically makes a person morally corrupt, and yet his rage was equal to that of the peasant boy, who felt cheated. robbed and denied a chance to escape poverty.

The peasant boy's morality was shown to be on a higher plane, as he finally consented to use the bike on alternate days. That was the compromise which came from the near-death battle in the streets, one peasant boy against a multitude of middle class boys. There seemed to be a peace and accord for a time, but toward the end, the middle class boy wanted the bike all to himself and fought almost to the death for it.

Finally the two boys were both bloody and beaten, the bicycle bent and broken, but the peasant boy limped back to work with the frame, as if to repair it and own it at all costs. It ended almost as if the message was that the human condition cannot be overcome, that there will be endless competition, struggle and suffering, as long as there are haves and have-nots.

I found the struggle emotionally gripping on many levels, the truths piercing and vital, so I cannot understand how it was that so many critics were unmoved.

Rating:
Summary: I really wanted to like the movie...
Review: ...but it was just too depressing, even 'til the end. I myself usually don't mind films like these, this film reminded me of Zhang Yimou's Not One Less cuz of the stubborness of the main character[s], and NOL was excellent...

Both films tell the story of their protagonists' struggled path, but this particular film, at the end, does not bear a sweet fruit. I know life isn't all that 'rewarding' at times, but I think, given the film being almost 2 hours long, it could have at least some sweet deserving moments for the characters at the end, but none of that took place.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious Trash
Review: As a person who is married to a Chinese, visited Beijing twice, and have seen mostly excellent Chinese films in the limited selection of non-Hong-Kong stuff available on DVD, this was a shock for us. The first few minutes of the film are passable, introducing the main characters, and providing a few nice glimpses of Beijing as lived by poor migrants versus (apparently) richer folk. After this, things go downhill fast. A good summary: a bicycle is stolen back and forth, and there's an escalating series of fights. By the last hour, the movie is reduced to gang fights and various people hitting each other with bricks and rocks. Nothing of any consequence really happens in the last hour; there's no character development, no romantic development (despite some hope of this early on) beyond truly high-school-movie-level stuff, and you just want this thing to be OVER!

So, do yourself a favor. There's great Chinese films out there..."Shower" is a truly brilliant and poignant film of modern Chinese life, check out "The Road Home" for a different, rural look back. Even going to Panda Express is better than this. Or, if you even wanna see well-done versions of people beating on each other, get "The Warriors" or "Scarface" or something. This is a major disappointment (though I might've give it 2 stars if not for the excessive length).

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Coming of Age film!
Review: Beijing Bicycle is the Chinese version of the Italian film Bicycle Thief, and with this in mind the audience should not be disappointed. The story is about two teenagers who live in Beijing.  One of the teenagers has just arrived from the countryside and the other has lived in the city his whole life.  A social economic message is delivered through these two teenagers, an owner and a thief of a mountain bike, and is intertwined with adolescent obstructions of coming to age. Overall, this is a solid film experience.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Coming of Age film!
Review: Beijing Bicycle is the Chinese version of the Italian film Bicycle Thief, and with this in mind the audience should not be disappointed. The story is about two teenagers who live in Beijing.  One of the teenagers has just arrived from the countryside and the other has lived in the city his whole life.  A social economic message is delivered through these two teenagers, an owner and a thief of a mountain bike, and is intertwined with adolescent obstructions of coming to age. Overall, this is a solid film experience.

Rating:
Summary: Emotionally visceral
Review: From what I've seen of Chinese movies so far, they don't seem to over-sentimentalize. Beijing Bicycle grips you with reality without being gratuitous. In the end, I found it hard to care for any of the characters, but I cared about the story. It is a story of hopes, dreams, survival, compromise, and envy. The action may be slowgoing, but the emotional undercurrents are seething.

Rating:
Summary: Bleak and unrelentlessly depressing
Review: Guei is newly employed as a bicycle express delivery driver. The company provides the bike. He gets 20% of the delivery fee until the bike is paid for, and then he gets 50%. Guei keeps track of how much he still owes--until the day finally arrives when he will own the bike outright.

Things go downhill from here. The bike is stolen during a delivery, and Guei--who apparently does not know when to quit, goes on a hunt for his missing bicycle. This is not an easy task as we see hundreds of bicycles everywhere the director's camera turns.

Guei is pummeled relentlessly and repeatedly by life, circumstance, and spoiled young thugs. The film was not a pleasant experience. The cinematography was excellent, acting superb, etc., but, bottom line--I did not enjoy this film.

Rating:
Summary: very watchable
Review: I just watched this movie last week. I am from China. I am not from Beijing though. What I like about this movie is, it really is so true in terms of the high school students' after school life. I felt I was among those teenger boys and girls while I was watching this movie. It is the first Chinese movie I saw that doesn't make students look the same. More than 10 years ago, when I was in China, all the Chinese movies would make all boys and girls appear in the movie standard good students, they don't fight, they always listens to adults and teachers, they help other kids, etc. Those kids appears in movie were good examples and standars for all Chinese students who watch movies. But they were good examples only, they were so phony, so unreal. Thus, when I was watching this movie, I did not echo with the country boy, but I had strong recognization with the city kids. I know Chinese high school kids just like that. Pretty girls were popular among boys and boys also fight for their girlfriends. They want to look cool and act cool too. They admire all western lifestyles. For example, the bycicle in this movie is not ordinary bycicle that Chinese people ususally ride. It is a mountain bike. So I assume it is at least more than $150 US dollars, maybe more, because some of my US coworkers do mountain biking, their bikes are very expensive, like more than $600. So the teenager boy got this mountain bike and want to have fun with his friends and also act cool in front of his girlfriend. Since the bike is not a cheap oridinary bike, therefore, both boys must fight for it. The country boy need it for his job. The city boy needed for a sense of pride and also fun because all his friends has one. Therefore, the fighting started and kept going all the way to the end. All these are very watchful. There are a few sense I don't like. First, the country boy shares the tooth brush with his friend(or uncle?). This is so disgusting. I have never heard people do that in China, not even in poor countryside. They rather not brush teeth than share the brush. This is very misleading. Second, I don't understand the role of the maid. Why is she in the movie? Just to show how the country people have their fun by watching a pretty young girl? I think this is to make fun of country people. In China right now, the city people(especially the big city like Beijing and Shanghai) look down on country side people. Therefore, in the movies, they make fun of country people even though they also show their sympathy towards them.
Overall, I like to watch it. I think it is better than other Chinese movies I have seen such as Happy Times, Not one less. This movie got a good plot and those boys in the movie does not look like they are acting. They are like ture people especially the high school students look so true and familiar to me. And apparently, China does not produce movies that show this side of high school life. This is the only movie I have seen. In USA, there are many movies show the true side of teenager life. China lack this kind of movies. I think parents need to watch this kind of movie to understand what their kids really think. Usually kids don't want to tell their paretns their true thoughts. What they want, what they like, paretns don't understand and think if their kids don't object, they could ignore their kids' requests again and again. Like in this movie, the father promised to buy bike for his son, but he did not keep his promise and that hurt his son very bad. But Chinese paretns usually don't know, and they should be educated too.

Rating:
Summary: Emotionally Satisfying?
Review: I totally agree with Mrs Lani Keane from Australia that this movie is very depressing and that the schoolboy character is a total brat...However, this movie did have many redeeming factors, such as an interesting glimpse of life in modern day China and beautiful cinematography. But the sadness of it has been with me for days and has almost made me wish I hadn't seen the movie. Perhaps the intense emotions that this movie evokes is an indication of a well-made film.

Rating:
Summary: The Country Kid and the City Kid
Review: OK, let's see if I can get this straight...This guy comes in from the countryside to get a job in the big city (Beijing, of course). He gets a job as a courier. It is a dream job, because they give him a brand new bicycle the first day, and all he has to do is work really hard to pay it off. He is very happy about being paid to ride a bike around Beijing all day.

Well, he finally gets the bike paid off, but it gets stolen. Then he gets fired because he failed to deliver an important document and the customer is angry. His boss is very upset with him, but tells him that he can have his job back if he finds his bike. So he becomes obsessed with finding his bike, especially since he has paid it off, and the bike belongs to him. By a stroke of fortune he finds the bike at a park. He grabs it and takes off. But the new owner, a city kid, is not happy to see it go. At first, our sympathies are clearly with the country kid, because who would take the side of a thief over a pour kid from the country who is just trying to make a living? But the thief didn't actually steal the bike, so he isn't really a thief. Except he actually is a thief because he took the money with which to buy the bike. Except he doesn't think of himself as a thief, because, well, its kinda complicated-you have to watch the movie..

So what happens is that the city kid's friends all gang up on the country kid, and they kinda have it out in what looks like the shell of an abandoned construction project. But the city kid and his friends are not able to take the country kid's bike away, 'cause he is holding on to it for all he is worth and crying real loud. Finally they agree to take turns using it. The city kid and the country kid actually become friends, and that would seem to be the logical end of the movie, but it's not, because the city kid bonks this other gang kid on the head with a brick because he took his girlfriend. So the gang kid retaliates and the country kid gets caught in the tangle. Lots of twists and turns in this flick...oh, I forgot about the neighbor lady who is obviously a high-society city lady, but actually turns out not to be...hmmm...not too sure how she fits into the picture. I guess she is kind of a symbol for what is going on between the two main characters. The plot-especially the end-leaves a little to be desired, but it does give one a feel for life among the youth in China who are coming of age in a society addicted to change. And if you think of it as an all-expense-paid guided tour of Beijing, it really isn't a bad movie.