Beijing Bicycle
Beijing Bicycle (十七岁的单车) appears to be a contemporary Chinese remake of the Italian neorealist classic The Bicycle Thief. The story is basically the same, except in Beijing Bicycle, you have a much younger protagonist, a countryside boy working as a bicycle delivery guy whose bike got stolen. Like the man in The Bicycle Thief, the boy needed to get his bike back in order to continue working, only in Beijing Bicycle, the boy also had to get it back to avoid paying his company for the lost bicycle. Beijing Bicycle deviates from the ‘original’ when the young Chinese boy eventually found his bike being pedalled by some other guy. The guy was not willing to give up the bike though because he had paid for it already, so they struggle to form some sort of ‘compromise’.
I liked the acting, the lead was really effective and natural in playing the role of a naive and desperate country boy. And following its neorealist predecessor, I liked how it managed to frankly yet discreetly illustrate the social struggles probably prevalent in fast-changing modern China.
My rating: 7.5/10
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Have you seen De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief”? It’s one of my favorites. A simple but poignant film. But I haven’t seen the Beijing Bicycle. Between the two films, which do you think is better, generally?