Beijing Bicycle | Review

Picture about boy and his bicycle feels deflated.

China’s slow adaptation and struggle with the economic push brought on by a capitalist consumerist system of the West is at the heart of this picture neatly packaged inside the hardships of a poor peasant boy and symbolized in his struggle for a better life with a hard-nosed will and determination to hold onto the only hope that he has got in the shape of two wheels, a couple of pedals and a small uncomfortable seat to sit on. The bicycle is- in some parts of the world is an emblem for life’s more leisure moments, while in other areas it represents a basic necessity for a person’s source of revenue.

Xiaoshuai Wang’s Beijing Bicycle is an updated and less poignant version of the classic 1948 neo-realism Vittorio De Sica film Ladri di biciclette, The Bicycle Thief. The similarities between the two films begin with the role of the bicycle as a vehicle and more importantly as a sign for a new ‘hope’ and a better life for the film’s protagonist, but when the bicycle gets stolen in the Italian film, there is a real sense of human desperation-you feel his sorrow and despair which strikes the viewer in the gut, this film attempts some of the same-showing the protagonist in a series of victim-like poses but it doesn’t draw on the same kind of sympathetic umpf from the audience. The set up of this film introduces the dim witted non-urban intelligent protagonist Guei on his first day on the job as a delivery boy or as his boss best describes it ‘carrier pigeon’. You get the sense from the inevitable will occur way before he even begins to pedal his bike around town and that is that he will get his main set of wheels stolen, this is emphasized by the first shot of the bicycle without its owner. When it predictable does occur, Wang introduces us to the true nature of the protagonist-a stubborn man who’ll do anything to reclaim his livelihood and Wang throws in the unsympathetic two-minute montage of a flood of people on bicycles, wheel spokes and bicycle chains following the motion. The protagonist egg gets split in two and we ride along into another story that follows the new owner of the lost bike-a pint-sized teenager Jian who lives the same sort of life conditions but he treats his new possession like a red corvette trying to impress a member of the opposite sex. There are some decent filmic elements such as the film score and some nice cinematography-I appreciated the long shots, but for the most part this is a rather an uneventful visual affair.

The major turning point of the film is when the two meet and literally fight over the possession of the bike. Wang could have developed two sets of stories showing -the desperation of the protagonist and the antagonist’s major social climb, but instead he litters his film with a bunch of poetic character silences and hitting over the head eruptions of a fight after fight and chase scene scenario. I think that this could have been a better film if Wang would have elaborated on the struggle between social classes, systems and ideologies as touched upon in the beginning with the boy peering through the fence opening at the well-off porcelain-looking girl and the misadventures in a grand hotel lobby rather than a struggle between two stupid teenagers. What very little that I’ve seen from Chinese Cinema has usually been a pleasant experience, combining thoughtful storylines and sharp imagery, but Beijing Bicycle didn’t make me care enough about the characters and the bike loses its significance- so after a draining two hours you are kind of happy about the unemotional final outcome, because that means you can no longer have to endure Wang’s numb less storytelling.

Rating 2 stars