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Though perhaps too slowly paced and long, The World offers an intriguing glimpse into China's modernization and the growing ennui of some of its people.
All Critics (44) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (31) | Rotten (13) | DVD (2)
A tonally flat experience. The movie's highs and lows are modulated to the point where nothing moves you or touches you in these lives of not-desperate-enough desperation. Oct 14, 2005 | Rating: 3/5
A tonally flat experience. The movie's highs and lows are modulated to the point where nothing moves you or touches you in these lives of not-desperate-enough desperation.
Roger Moore
It's a heartbreaking, beautiful movie that gains strength from its deep characterizations. Sep 16, 2005 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
It's a heartbreaking, beautiful movie that gains strength from its deep characterizations.
G. Allen Johnson
Its rewards come with patience and concentration. Sep 9, 2005 | Rating: 3/4
Its rewards come with patience and concentration.
Tom Keogh
It has a romantic power that seeps into your bones, with its languid rhythms, general plotlessness, and fierce attention to surreal detail. Aug 26, 2005 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…
It has a romantic power that seeps into your bones, with its languid rhythms, general plotlessness, and fierce attention to surreal detail.
Wesley Morris
The World has a lot to say and is not in any unholy rush to say it. Aug 18, 2005 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…
The World has a lot to say and is not in any unholy rush to say it.
Kenneth Turan
Jia's most extraordinary mapping isn't of an external landscape, but an emotional one. Without ever leaving Beijing, he shows us an entire universe of human joy, frailty and sorrow. Aug 18, 2005 | Full Review…
Jia's most extraordinary mapping isn't of an external landscape, but an emotional one. Without ever leaving Beijing, he shows us an entire universe of human joy, frailty and sorrow.
Scott Foundas
This isn't a tragedy, this is life as it is, with all its beauty and grimness intact. Mar 13, 2018 | Full Review…
This isn't a tragedy, this is life as it is, with all its beauty and grimness intact.
Yasmin Shehab
Gives one a rough idea about the Chinese Dream through its modern day landscape and relating the new China to the hopes and aspirations of its young citizens. Sep 12, 2008 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…
Gives one a rough idea about the Chinese Dream through its modern day landscape and relating the new China to the hopes and aspirations of its young citizens.
Dennis Schwartz
The World feels too small in scope--ironic considering its title. Mar 1, 2007 | Full Review…
The World feels too small in scope--ironic considering its title.
Ethan Alter
The World is less a condemnation of the current state of the world than an attempt to explain and come to terms with it. Mar 4, 2006 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
The World is less a condemnation of the current state of the world than an attempt to explain and come to terms with it.
Derek Smith
Beyond the novelty of the setting -- which isn't even that novel when you have something similar a few exits south -- there's just not enough going on. Oct 13, 2005 | Full Review…
Beyond the novelty of the setting -- which isn't even that novel when you have something similar a few exits south -- there's just not enough going on.
Steve Schneider
Easily one of the year's best films. Sep 16, 2005 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
Easily one of the year's best films.
Jeffrey M. Anderson
a unique vision of 'the world' as a theme park in beijing and the mundane lives of the workers there. a gorgeous looking film with surprise animated sequences
Super Reviewer
Definitely worth watching for its' absolutely stunning cinematography. The film takes place almost entirely inside a 114-acre theme park, World Park, on the outskirts of Beijing. The park contains 1/3 scaled replicas of internationally renowned buildings and sites, including the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, London Bridge, etc. A slow-paced melodrama of contemporary Chinese society, with something to say about the growing uniformity of our world.
A very dull and boring movie. I know it is supposed to show the bleakness of contemporary urban Chinese live in an oppositional context to the "World" (which is a large Disney Worldesque theme park). But personally, I think it utterly fills. There are many moments of silence, but they are not filled with despair or sadness but are just empty. One should not mistake silence and lowkey direction for deepness. There are many movies succesfully portraying dystopian societies (think Shane Meadows, De Sica etc.), but this is not one of them. Stay away.
An unfortunately average portrayal of how a culture interprets the rest of the world and adapts to it.
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