At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.
Direction
Jia Zhangke's patient, documentarian eye finds poetry in mundanity.
Cinematography
Artificial monuments dwarf real people — devastating visual metaphor.
Acting
Zhao Tao's restrained devastation will wreck you.
Director
Jia Zhangke
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Jia shot illegally without official permits, smuggling footage past authorities. The World Park itself later closed and fell into disrepair.
This was Jia's first state-approved film after years of underground work — a bitter irony given its critique of state-sanctioned spectacle.
CN
