critics consensus

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. Read critic reviews

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24 City Photos

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Movie Info

Documentary focusing on the lives of eight people affected after a thriving factory in China that provides hundreds of jobs is replaced by an apartment complex.

Genre:

documentary, drama
Original Language:

Chinese
Director:

Zhang Ke Jia
Producer:

Shozo Ichiyama
Writer:

Zhang Ke Jia, Yongming Zhai
Release Date (Streaming):

Aug 10, 2016
Runtime:

1h 52m
Production Co:

Shanghai Film Group

Cast & Crew

Jianbin Chen

Joan Chen
Little Flower

Liping Lu
Hao Dali

Tao Zhao
Su Na

Zhang Ke Jia
Director

Zhang Ke Jia
Writer

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for 24 City

All Critics (44) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (39) | Rotten (5)

Through interviews with retired workers and faux interviews with scripted characters, Jia brings long-repressed history to life on an intimate scale.

July 23, 2018 | Full Review…

Richard Brody
New Yorker
24 City belies its documentary origins with overtly poetic film language: the film is an elegiac visual symphony of carefully framed compositions, trompe l'oeil camera movements, posed portraits, internal rhymes and mysterious vignettes.

June 18, 2012 | Full Review…

Tony Rayns
Sight and Sound
A blend of documentary and drama which is by turns movingly authentic and deliberately artificial.

September 14, 2010 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
24 City includes evocative footage of Factory 420's dismantling, but emphasizes people over place.

July 6, 2010 | Full Review…

Mark Jenkins
NPR
In [Jia Zhangke's] chronicle of the changing fortunes of a defunct but once glorious aeronautic factory and its workers through talking heads and wordless images exclusively, the documentary strain prevails to simple, yet emotionally reverberating effect.

July 6, 2010 | Full Review…

Maggie Lee
Hollywood Reporter
Strongest moments are when the pristine HD lensing by Hong Kong's Yu Lik-wai (a Jia regular) and Wang Yu, and warm string music by Yoshihiro Hanno, take over in montages showing the gradual dismantling of the factory.

July 6, 2010 | Full Review…

Derek Elley
Variety
Things are confused here, and the documentary/drama suffers. A lack of social and historical perspective lies at the heart of the problem.

February 13, 2021 | Full Review…

David Walsh
World Socialist Web Site
A fascinating and bittersweet film, its structure creating a wholly original and moving viewing experience that takes the plight of people half a world away, and makes it stunningly, hauntingly, our own.

August 5, 2019 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Matthew Lucas
From the Front Row
A fond, quietly ironic look at the past and the present facing the global problem of individual obsolescence and urban uprooting.

February 11, 2016 | Full Review…

Donald J. Levit
ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Jia purposely refrains from voicing any opinions here and its authenticity may be arguable, but if pure fiction is so often taken as historical testimony, why shouldn't half-fiction qualify for the same honours?

August 4, 2015 | Full Review…

Dan Fainaru
Screen International
Jia Zhangke seems to be entering a new phase of his fascinating career with 24 City, a documentary/fiction hybrid that reworks the director's signature techniques and strategies to stunning and self-critical effect.

August 2, 2015 | Full Review…

Michael Joshua Rowin
Stop Smiling
In the end, the filmmaker's fragmented approach marks an interesting, if not entirely successful, departure for one of China's most talented working directors.

August 2, 2015 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Derek Smith
Tiny Mix Tapes

View All Critic Reviews (44)

Audience Reviews for 24 City

Dec 22, 2010

Thankfully, "24 City" is not a continuation of the television series "24." All kidding aside, it is easier to describe what "24 City" is not, than what it is. Ostensibly, it is about the tearing down of Factory 420 in Chengdu City in order to make way for luxury apartments. That is only a starting point for an exploration of the recent history of China as it has moved from a country always on a war footing to one that is now ruled by capital, with the airplanes once made in the factory now museum pieces. This is told through static interviews with former workers, managers and others involved in the factory, the last of whom being Su Na(Tao Zhao), a professional shopper who frequently travels to Hong Kong for her clients. 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.

Walter M Super Reviewer
Jan 02, 2010

Compelling story of a decision to destroy a long time munitions factory to make way for a condo development. It is a story that is told worldwide as politics and economics change. Would merit a higher rating but the director chose to use both real former factory workers and actors. The result is slightly disjointed and a bit misleading.

John B Super Reviewer
Sep 23, 2009

No modern filmmaker has documented the melancholy evolution of modern China better than Jia Zhang Ke, and his latest, "24 City," mixes documentary interviews with fictional monologues to tell the story of an old munitions factory and the people who worked in it, that is now being razed to build a high rise living spaces called "24 City." A poignant examination of urban progress, and the gap between the old generation and the new.

Matthew L Super Reviewer