Nineteen years old and jobless best friends Xiao Ji and Bin Bin spend lots of time just hanging around. Xiao Ji puts the move on pretty Qiao Qiao, a dancer-model with a thug boyfriend. Bin Bin is not convinced the army may be his only way out. These young people represents the generation born in the 80’s, during the years of the politics of a son for couple, and that, therefore, never had brothers or sisters. For this nonchalant generation thet sees the future dictated by financial gain, it’s sometimes too difficult to resist the temptation of easy money. Especially when they don’t see the point of living past 30...

Jia Zhangke was born in 1970 in the small remote village of Fenyang in the province of Shanxi. With 18 years-old, Jia Zhang-ke studied arts in Taiyuan, the capital of the Province of Shanxi. It also developed a taste for the fiction, having written, in 1991, its first novel - “The Sun Hung on the Crotch”. Two years later, he was admitted in the Department of Literature of the Academy of Cinema of Beijing. His first film, “Xiao Wu”, in 1997, was acclaimed by the critics and received several awards. The film was made in the same year that he finished the course in the Academy of Cinema.

“I had left to make a documentary on the industrial architecture. At the principle, I wanted only to show these factories and these warehouses built in the years 1950-1960 that are abandoned today. Little by little, the idea to insert characters became essential. I could make the project go further thanks to the use of the camera DV, which allows speed of decision, lightness of use and economy.”

Filmography
Shijie / The World (2004), Ren Xiao Yao / Unknown Pleasures (2002), In Public (2001, c.m. / short), Zhantai / Plataforma (2000), Xiao Wu / Pickpocket (1997)