China is giving the economy top priority, so capital accumulation for the rich is more important than the standard of life among ordinary Chinese. For those leaving the provinces for the bustling cities, life is frantic. Whereas So Close to Paradise (2001) illustrates the situation in Wuhan, The World (Shijie), directed by Jia Zhangke, focuses on Beijing, in particular a themepark where a fifteen-minute monorail ride goes around scaled-down replicas of the Arc de Triumph, Big Ben, the Egyptian pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, St. Mark's Square in Venice, St. Peter's Square, the Taj Mahal, the World Trade Center towers, and more--along with dance spectaculars. The story offers a slice in the lives of the lowest-level twentysomething employees of World Park--dancers, security guards, and their friends, most of whom are presumably from Shanxi Province. When the film begins, Tao (played by Zhao Tao), a dancer, cries out for a band-aid; she has an injured foot. From that point on, all the characters cry out in one way or another about injuries to their psychological well-being. Lacking family in Beijing, the men crave female companionship, but the women suffer from being jilted after men have taken them into the bedroom, so the battle of the sexes undergirds the plot. Most attention focuses on Taisheng (played by Chen Taishen), a security guard. His girlfriend, Tao (played by Jing Dong Liang), has recently broken up with someone, so she is cautious and plays hard to get until Taisheng infuriates her by getting on top, exposing her breasts, and asking her to prove her love. Eventually, he shifts his attention to a dressmaker, Qun (played by Qun Yiqun), who has been waiting eight years to get a visa to join her husband in Paris, which he reached as a survivor of a shipload of illegal immigrants. When she gets the visa, Taisheng again seeks a girl who is willing to serve his body. Meanwhile, Niu (played by Zhongwei Jiang) is in love with Wei (played by Jing Jue), who refuses to disclose her whereabouts to him despite his insistence on knowing where she is all the time. When she tires of being asked to report her movements and declares an end to the relationship, Niu starts to burn his jacket, , whereupon Wei responds by putting out the flame, and they are soon married. What The World exposes most sharply are the unsafe living and working conditions, which result in three otherwise avoidable deaths, amid the mass society that China is creating by allowing the economy to run amuk. As a footnote of sorts, four Russian women arrive to join the dance troupe, but they are coerced into surrendering their passports, thus assuring that they will be kept in slave conditions, a theme that has been thoroughly explored in Tricky Life (2002) and Lilja 4-Ever (2003). MH
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