lreynaert The dismantling of an old military factory and its replacement by the immense '24 City complex' of luxury flats and shopping malls in Chengdu is a perfect image of the socio-economic upheaval in China. It is the old communist credo - first the heavy industry and then consumption – on its head.As a great admirer of Bertolt Brecht ('Still Life' was inspired by the 'Good Person of Szechwan'), Jia Zhang Ke analyzes brilliantly the impact of socio-economic policies on individual lives. He never forgets the human touch, here in the reactions of three different generations linked to the factory.This factory was in fact a State secret, a hidden military plant for repairing airplanes. Mao had ordered that all military factories had to be hidden in the mountains in Central China. Their workforce had a privileged status for food, drinks, housing or entertainment. It formed a village of its own, nearly totally cut from the rest of the population of the city. This tightly knit group had its own histories of love, jealousy, family splits and losses, of camaraderie and solidarity. Jia Zhang Ke used professional actors, like Joan Chen, and amateurs in his movie in order to illustrate forcefully the human impact of the demolition of a landscape. The interviews revive reminiscences of crucial incidents that marked people for the rest of their lives. The demolition means sorrow and nostalgia for the old labor force, but also new opportunities for the new generation. The movie illustrates the monumental gap between the living conditions of the old generation (absolutely no waste of food, clothes or spare parts) and the new one (buying expensive gadgets in Hong Kong).Of course, the interview technique has been used in many movies (probably one of the first was 'Hitler, never heard of him' by Bertrand Blier), but rarely this technique has created a docu-drama of such gripping intensity as here. Jia Zhang Ke made a very original and highly emotional and moving masterpiece. A must see for all movie buffs.

Hunky Stud 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.

Joseph Sylvers Zhang Ke Jai has(at least to me) grown substantially since "The World", able to leave some of the melodrama behind and let his characters and the landscapes speak for themselves. "24 City" is a beautiful film, both relevant and moving in the ways "Up In The Air" wishes it were.A factory in Chengdu, China that has been in operation for generations is being closed down to make room for a upscale high rise apartment building called "24 City" ironically named after a poem about harmony. We follow a series of interviews with former factory workers about their lives in and around the factory.Some of the interviews could have been shortened or illustrated visually instead of having us just watching talking heads speaking over silence, but that is my personal preference.It could be argued, by not re-creating their lives Jai gives his subjects a sense of dignity, and creates an intimacy between them and the viewer that would be otherwise lost. For the most part I would agree, though in honesty, I did get anxious more than a few times during some of these discussions. Jai's subjects at first seemed to be almost rambling inconsequentially, but as the film goes on, their statements become enmeshed in each other and the film as a whole, and intricately articulate how the factory for generations was their entire world, romantically, socially, philosophically, and culturally.Some of the workers had their first fights there, their first loves, some moved their whole families on the promise of work, while others left their families behind, and suddenly this community which has sustained them all this time has disappeared, moved by forces beyond their control. Part of the film is documentary, but some of the interviews are "fictional" and feature actors.I had trouble telling the difference between those who were actors and who were actual workers, but the mixture between the authentic and the dramatic only serves to highlight the contrast between the promise of worker's solidarity and justice and the realities of changing economic priorities. Jai's "The World" offered us the best metaphor for the globalized melancholic that I've yet to see, that of an amusement park masquerading as the greatest architectural achievements of humanity, while those who toil in it are increasingly alienated from any sense of "authentic" culture, themselves, and each other. That film itself, however was not as compelling as it's ideas.In many ways "24 City" and so I am told Jai's similar, "Still Life" continue this series on the changing face of China, and the "real" people caught up in this global gentrification. What made me look at "24 City" as something other than just a clever polemic was a baffling scene of a girl skating to a soft, bubbly, trance like electronic song. The girl skates in circles, and the music plays and we just observe her, and the song continues, as the camera floats off looking across the city and the mammoth building rising up into the skyline. I don't know what if any purpose this scene had to the rest of the film, but it was lovely. Equally startling were the huge crowds of workers, by the hundreds in the film's first scenes, that are as overwhelming as the CG throngs of countless soldiers and orcs from "The Lord Of The Rings" epic battle-scapes. In those moments Zhang makes his cinematic eye, rival and better his(at least for me)binding interest in social realism.Realism especially of the socially progressive variety is not my cup of tea (to put a borderline pathological aversion mildly), but "24 City" made, if not a believer, than a fascinated viewer out of me. If globalization has to be "hot button" of contemporary art, if there must be sad-sack post-modernist which stylistically bite the hands that feed them, if the classical Marxist themes of alienation, class, and gentrification must persist on into the next decade, we could all do worse than to see them filtered through Zhang's warm humanism (another term I would usually avoid).It's not a thrill a minute, and there is no George Clooney smirking to enjoy, but "24 City" is rewarding, intimate, and oddly sensual, which few politicized movies, and even fewer documentaries, seem capable of doing these days. This is the first Jai I enjoyed, and makes me interested to visit the rest of the oeuvre.

Harry T. Yung Does a structure of concrete and steel have life? You bet, if interwoven with the stories of people from three generations and a variety of backgrounds and aspirations. This is exactly what Director JIA Zhangke accomplished with this project. The transformation of "Factory 420" (an aviation engine factory built in 1958) into a modern-day upscale apartment complex "24 City" is documented in 8 or 9 interviews (depending on which film festival program you are read – Cannes 08, TIFF 08 or HKIFF 09). Through these stories that are sobering, often touching and sometimes humorous, the concrete and steel structure "Factory 420" acquires a life of its own, from birth to demise and rebirth as "24 City". This structure in turn serves as a motif for witnessing the vicissitudes and development of the city Chengdu.Despite the fact that there is no dramatisation of these stories, which are told, literally, by the interview objects right in front of a stationary camera all the time, they are mesmerising. The interviewees are as varied as can be: an old factory worker, and even older party (Communist) official, a factory executive in the next generation, an idealistic young man, three women – two from each of the first and second generation workers and the youngest born in 1982, daughter of the factory worker but on her way of becoming a yuppie herself. There are some others, shorter segments which perhaps gives rise to the varying views of how many interviews there are.The poignancy in the older generation is moving, particularly in the cases where it is the real worker. The factory executive's account of his adolescent adventures, including a "puppy love" courtship, provides some comic relief. While the men interviewed are the real people themselves, the three women are professional actors. Joan Chen plays a middle age spinster who has missed her chance when she was the "factory flower". Her portrayal of this woman who at the same time values her freedom and laments her loneliness is superb. At one point, she even plays the "Julia Robert's joke" in "Ocean's twelve" – this worker tells how she is nicknamed "Little flower" because she looked like the actress Joan Chen in a movie playing a character with that name. Director Jia's favourite actor ZHAO Tao (who has appeared in just about every film he has made) plays a 27-year-old woman coming to sudden realization of her love for her mother, an emotion that has hitherto been buried deep down.The film closes with Director Jia's signature super-slow penning camera, a panoramic view of Chengdu from the vintage point of an observation tower.