24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) (2008)
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 33
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 3
One of China's most talented directors blurs the lines between non-fiction, drama, and musical theater in this vivid portrait of a country in cultural flux.
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 1
One of China's most talented directors blurs the lines between non-fiction, drama, and musical theater in this vivid portrait of a country in cultural flux.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 1,041
My Rating
Movie Info
When the state-owned Factory 420 becomes a luxury apartment complex known as "24 City," the stories of three generations and eight characters meld together to offer an intimate glimpse into the history of China. The line between documentary and fiction blurs as the towering factories on which socialism was built are dismantled and employees are laid off, paving the way for a free-market economy. Located in Sichuan's capital city of Chengdu, the 420 plant used to produce airplane engines. For
Cast
-
Joan Chen
Gu Minhua (Little Flowe... -
Lu Liping
Hao Dali -
Tao Zhao
Su Na -
Chen Jianbin
Zhao Gang
ADVERTISEMENT
24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) Trailer & Photos
All Critics (34) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (3) | DVD (2)
The film takes on an operatic feel, moving between euphoria for the new and lament for the lost.
Top CriticThe director has an exquisite eye that keeps getting stronger and subtler. He trusts that beauty is vagueness's alluring upside.
24 City won't change the minds of detractors -- it is his most painfully slow yet -- but it might change the minds of his supporters, including this critic, for Jia attempts something that is, in the end, unforgivable.
The result is surprisingly engrossing -- even lively, due in part to brief musical numbers inserted amid the interviews.
Mr. Jia is an artist, one of the most interesting filmmakers working anywhere in the world, and he made his film to bear witness to a way of life while witnesses could still be found.
The actors in 24 City, an experimental fiction-nonfiction hybrid, bring their own existential realities to their short, touching performances.
Zhangke never hints much about politics ... His is more the story of ordinary people caught up in history and still determined to live their lives as well as they can. It's both relevant and resonant.
History weaves in and out of faces that purl their monologues -- real or scripted -- as Jia presents the past as a giant, invisible river.
An intriguing hybrid of fiction and documentary, this film chronicles the dismantling of a notorious factory in Chengdu to make way for a new luxury community. It's skilfully assembled, but a bit dry for Western audiences.
Punctuated with eyebrow-raising poems about aeronautics factories, its treacle-paced obliqueness will frustrate some viewers. But the pay-off's a layered, haunting portrait of China in its shift to a capitalist economy.
A deeply serious and sombre film, trying to find a way of telling the stories of people affected by the gigantic political and economic changes sweeping that country whose concerns must in the end affect us all: 21st-century China.
Enthralling, beguiling and haunting.
Chinese arthouse fixture Jia Zhang Ke looks at the closure of a state-owned factory in Chengdu, combining real interviews with awkwardly am-dram mock ones.
Reflective historical documentary on ordinary Chinese workers.
As far as nonfiction goes, you probably won't seen anything else this year so beautifully filmed.
This blending of the truth and invention is a key plank of Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke's work, which skates so close to documentary it is hard to spot the join.
Compelling and provocative with powerful images and quietly moving interviews that shed light on impact of social, economical and political changes on factory workers in China.
Jia Zhangke uses documentary and narrative storytelling in "24 City," an extraordinary chronicling of how deconstruction of an aviation factory in Chengdu, China, effects the lives of 30,000 workers for whom the factory was not just a job, but a way of li
Audience Reviews for 24 City (Er shi si cheng ji)
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for 24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) yet.
What's Hot On RT
The Last Stand, Side Effects
Trailer for new Coen Bros movie
Fast & Furious cars gallery
Blockbusters ranked!
Featured on RT
- In Pictures: The Cars of Fast & Furious 0
- Digital Multiplex: Warm Bodies and Aftershock 5
- Discover the Best-Reviewed Films in Summer Movie Scorecard 2013 0
- RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: The Last Stand and Side Effects 16
- Box Office Guru Wrapup: Star Trek Softer Than Expected at #1 86
- Weekly Ketchup: Will Smith to Star in Wild Bunch Remake? 39
- Critics Consensus: Star Trek Into Darkness is Certified Fresh 107
Top Headlines
-
Which Film Franchise Has Been the Best for Female Characters?
3
-
Damon Lindelof Talks Tomorrowland
0
-
10 Movies About Really Fast Cars
1
-
Poltergeist Remake Synopsis Hints at Plot Differences
8
-
Kristen Wiig Says Welcome to Me
1
-
David Fincher's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Gets Bumped
0
-
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance Remake in the Works
0
Fresh Links
Featured
Star Trek Movies Ranked
HitFix offers their own take on the worst-to-best of the Enterprise crew's cinematic adventures.
Top 10 Star Trek Villains
Rolling Stone unveils the Enterprise's most irksome adversaries.
Celebrity Yearkbook Flashback
We'll bet you never realized how many stars were cheerleaders and high school athletes!
50 Most Classic Movie Moms
In celebration of Mother's Day, TimeOut offers up 50 iconic matriarchs from the big screen.
Weirdest Movie Siblings
From Twins to The Royal Tenenbaums, Moviefone explores cinema's oddest siblings.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter!
Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Foreign Titles
- 24 City (FR)
And as you can see and I have read elsewhere, some of these subjects are played by actors and I am not really sure which ones are which. One interviewee, Gu Minhua, who claims she was once compared to Joan Chen is actually Joan Chen. So, basically, "24 City" sits on the edge of documentary and experiment, not totally successful, that maybe should have been attempted on a stage, instead.