Critics reviews

Jia Zhang-ke's second feature (2002) is his best work to date and one of the greatest of all Chinese films... Many episodes unfold in single long takes, with offscreen sound playing an important role, and the beautifully choreographed mise en scene recalls the fluid Hungarian pageants of Miklos Jancso in the 60s and 70s.

Some critics have complained about the film's lack of narrative vigor, forgetting that Jia's point is that there's very little for these people to live out. These are lives trapped in amber, trying to create a more complex narrative. Via startling long shots and temporal displacements, Jia truly evokes a community grasping hopelessly for something, anything to lift them up.

One of the richest films of the past decade... Jia has a strong visual style (scrupulous compositions based on long fixed-camera ensemble takes) and a powerful set of thematic concerns (the spiritual confusion of contemporary China, caught between the outmoded materialism of the Maoist era and its market-driven successor), as well as a vivid sense of place (dusty, inland Shanxi province).