Er shi si cheng ji

I was looking forward to this film as I know Chengdu quite well and the topic of the rapid changes in China society interests me a great deal. I was less than impressed with the only other film by Zhang Ke Xia I'd seen (The World), which seemed to me to be a clunking metaphor in search of a script, but I thought it still sounded promising. How wrong I was - I find myself mystified by the praise this film has been given.

It starts out so well, with some beautiful and moving interviews with retired workers from the factory, now moving out from Chengdu to an industrial estate to the suburbs (but we suspect of course that this is a fiction, the factory really is no more and the workers are disposable). The insight into what these workers thought of their jobs (they were highly prized) and the genuine pride they felt in their factory is moving and fascinating. But for whatever reason, the film then moves to using painfully obvious actors to read scripted lines. The actors are quite awful, using the pauses for effect and blank stares into the middle distance of amateur dramatic society volunteers. And they quite obviously people who've never been in a foundry in their lives (neither i suspect had the film makers, as the working foundry scenes were patently set up). I can't help see this as an obvious insult to the real workers, who presumably were not considered good looking or articulate enough to be in the film. The scripted stories they tell are so obvious and fake in comparison to the more sober recollections than the real people, its hard not to feel they were written for effect, not to create a real remembrance or to provide some sort of deeper truth (which is usually the excuse of film makers trying to justify short cuts and showy technique). I can only wonder what those people who were interviewed and poured their hearts out would think to see tiny scraps of their personal stories told by some patently bored flown in actors.

The rest of the film is pretty much standard documentary work, with little real feel or imagination in its telling. The photography fails miserably to convey the genuine grandeur of those old industrial buildings and makes no attempt to tell us what the new 24city will look like, apart from a brief moment showing us the model for the new complex. No attempt whatever is made to tell us a bit more about the mechanics of what is actually happening or how the former workers will be treated. The juxtaposition of hardy old industrial workers and the somewhat vapid younger generation is rather obvious and clichéd, it doesn't actually tell the viewer anything new or interesting.

I can't help thinking that this film would never have gotten its release if it had been made by a less exalted film maker. I strongly suspect that for whatever reason (pressure by the government?), the original film was altered significantly, forcing the use of actors and its lack of any concrete reference to the present or future for these people. If this is the case, then it should have been scrapped, not presented as the farrago it is.

Chris Knipp's review of "24 City" (this film's English title) contains many useful details, which I need not recapitulate. It also contains some misstatements, which I would like to correct, and omits the sort of political insights which this interested observer of Chinese politics since the late 1950s would like to supply.

Among the misstatements: to say that the "dim-witted" (i.e. semi-senile) retired worker who receives a long-delayed visit from his former apprentice was a "master of the factory" gives an inaccurate impression. The man was the head of a production team, not of the entire factory. While the film certainly is quite slow-moving, it is an exaggeration to say that "one person or a group look(ed) silently into the camera for a minute or so." I also don't agree that the film tells a "tale of repression," not in the true political sense of the word, anyway. Had the workers waged a mass struggle to convert their factory to some other use or, at least, to move their jobs to some other site, then we might have seen some actual repression (attacks by cops, arrests etc.) — if the director had the guts to show it to us, that is. Finally, where did Chris get "Later (Factory) 420 was retooled to produce peacetime products such as washing machines."? Neither my wife nor I noticed any such comment in the film.

The scene mentioned above between former master and apprentice was extremely touching. But were these men the actual workers or were they actors? As soon as I became aware that actors were delivering some of the "interviews," my opinion of this film plummeted. Chris accepted this as necessary: "Actors are used for some of the people because Jia interviewed 130 people and had to create composites." "Had to"? Were the originals not photogenic enough? Did they not tell their stories engagingly enough? Or was the director so inept that he didn't get some of the interviews on film? Later, though, Chris said that this method "undercut the sense of realism." And how! The New York Film Festival's (NYFF) introduction was similarly divided about whether the film was more documentary or more fictional. "24 City's" most blatantly phony "testimony" was that of "Little Flower," a mature female "factory worker," played by the widely-known, glamorous actress Joan Chen. When "Little Flower" relates her unlucky-in-love history, she mentions that her coworkers said she looked just like the actress Joan Chen! Cute, no? The fact that director JiaZhangKe (the format in which his name appears in the film's credits) wasted time and effort on this completely dispensable item reflects the weakness underlying his whole approach to the project.

Chris said that the director's previous work "seems to have given way (here) to adverts for capitalism." It seemed to me that the director evinced a significant ideological dilemma: either he doesn't know exactly where he stands or, if he does, he doesn't have the guts to tell us. The film contains several HINTS of nostalgia for the early years of the People's Republic, including the description by a long-time plant security official of Factory 420's important role in producing jet engines for Chinese and North Korean military aircraft during the "struggle against U.S. Imperialism" (i.e. what the U.S. calls the "Korean War"). Imagine — there still are people in China who are capable of using such terminology! Then there is the brief scene of a group of middle-aged women (workers from Factory 420?) singing "The Internationale" (which, contrary to the NYFF's introduction, is NOT a "pop song"). Who-when-where-why? Sorry, the director doesn't bother to provide such details.

What the director DOES NOT tell us is at the heart of what is wrong with this film. During the Q&A session after the film's NYFF premier, JiaZhangKe mentioned that the destruction of Factory 420 resulted in the loss of their jobs by about 30,000 workers. Why the hell didn't he put this little detail into the film? Were these workers offered other jobs or retraining for such? Did they receive severance pay and if so, how much? Did they receive unemployment compensation and, if so, how much and for how long? Did they lose their factory-associated housing, medical care and schooling for their children? Such information would have been useful to those interested in the sociology and political economy of contemporary China but providing it was not on JiaZhangKe's agenda.

What was JiaZhangKe's purpose in showing us the visit by the stylish young professional shopper to her mother's factory, where she sees for the first time the miserable, oppressive nature of her mother's job and weeps? Was he simply promoting sympathy for the older generation or did he think that the "transition to a market economy" will eliminate the need for such degrading labor? (A close look at the vast number of numbingly repetitive jobs in the highly capitalized modern factories of the "world's workshop" would dispel any such illusion.)

Why does "24 City" only contain interviews with workers laid off from Factory 420 in the 1990s and earlier? Why no interviews with ANY of the thousands being laid off as Factory 420 is torn down to make room for a five-star hotel? Might such workers have been too angry? Might they have made intemperate comments about China's rulers? The cowardliness involved in this deficiency is breathtaking! JiaZhangKe poses as sympathetic to those who suffer from capitalist development but doesn't want to go too far in that direction because he is not completely opposed to this process. Nor does he want to cut off his access to the lucrative capitalist world film market. His invocation of the mystical, reactionary poetry of W. B. Yeats is but one signal of his orientation to that market and of his willingness to "go along."

Barry Freed

This movie is by far his best IMHO. The flow is engaging and natural while the 'empty' spaces in between narrations are not unlike those quiet passages in Chopin's piano pieces or the white spaces in the classic Chinese paintings.

I used to think Joan Chen only as a pretty face. But her performance here, even though short, changed my view completely. She can really act and act well! And she's still beautiful more than ever. Gawd bless her! The other pro actresses have proved their mastery in acting long ago and didn't disappoint here either.

But the most credit has to go to the writer/director Jia - these short stories never really intertwine with each other as a plot, but together they are so strong and compelling that makes any smart and coy plot pale in comparison. Jia again nailed the pulse of the real life drama right on without wasting much of anything.

I can't help but feel sympathetic to those who can't get 'it' because of the lack of background knowledge about the modern China. Only it's ironic, or even rather sad that, for such an iconic Chinese master movie maker with such a quintessential Chinese story telling, only found his fame mostly outside China today.

Once a famous jazz critic wrote that if you remove all the names of the white jazz players from its history, you haven't changed jazz a single bit. IMHO, by the time the outside world gets tired of the curiosity of Jia, over time his mastery will establish itself in China and only then will he find his real audience.

That DVD design looked as if it was about a japan military story, because their military flag looks similar.

This film is like an authentic documentary. The few famous actors appeared in it did a good job. Even though you know who they are in real life, but they acted as if they were really part of that factory.

And I loved it when Joan chen spoke shanghai dialect, it is rare for a Chinese film to use shanghai dialect. It is sort of forbidden by the Chinese communist party. If hong kong was a part of China since 1949, then there won't be any cantonese films at all, because the CCP forces every film to be made in mandarin Chinese only.

I also liked it when Joan chen spoke her mandarin with a shanghai accent. she can speak perfect mandarin, but she did it to make her role more authentic.

Time is changing, I believe what those people said in this film really reflect what is happening to those factory workers who were laid off.

I finally watched this film from beginning to end, after seeing pieces of it from various TV channels.

First of all, I want to remind viewers that the loss of employment due to the closure of a factory or business, and the resulting hardship for the affected, is a global problem and not unique to China. Economic vicissitudes are simply a fact life, and no country can be an exception to this rule. So any suggestion that Director Jia intended to hide the magnitude of the impact to the laid off employees of the closed down factory is a mute point.

As with his other works, this film requires the utmost in patience. Long takes of interviewees, played by the actual characters themselves or substituted by professional actors, convey the fineness in human emotion of the affected characters.

The film is about lives of very ordinary Chinese people in an evolving economy. Some young, some middle-aged, and some old. It explores human emotion - mostly the good side of it. It was about love neglected over time, or over mundane day-to-day obligations. The beautiful factory worker role played by Joan Chen is an interesting one - she was the prettiest of the bunch and yet a failure in finding love. Great acting from Ms. Chen for this short role.

In short, I enjoyed the film as I did with 'Still Life'. So when you are in the mood for some serious cinema or have the interest for a glimpse into life in contemporary China, get this DVD and let Jia Zhang Ke tell you the stories of these ex-factory workers. Your patience will be rewarded.