Correct location of the film is Shenzhen, not Beijing.
Added 6/16/2009
This review is a correction that may help search engines.
The location of the movie is "Window of the World" park, in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is next to Hong Kong. Window of the World is just one of several OCT recreation complexes in Shenzhen, including two other amusement parks: "Happy Valley" and the Chinese Folk Village/Splendid China.
The location is not Beijing, as listed in other reviews. Saying Window of the World is in Beijing is sort of like saying Cedar Point park (in Ohio) is in New Orleans.
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A great location in search of a movie
Added 8/24/2008
Zhang Ke Jia's The World is a great location in search of a movie. Set in a Beijing theme park recreating the major cities of Europe dominated by a one-third scale replica of the Eiffel Tower and dealing with the employees and their friends, it's really just comes over as a whole lot of nothing. Scenes may be true to life but they're trivial and, like the characters, never really go anywhere. That may well be the point, but that doesn't make watching it easy going. There's possibly something about the globalization of Chinese culture lurking in their somewhere and the contrast between the glamorous face of modern China vs the poor quality of life for migrant workers, but nothing really comes through because the characters are so univolving. Instead it's like watching people out of a bus window on a rainy day while waiting for the traffic lights to change, images washing over you inoffensively but without leaving any lasting impression as you move on.
Be aware that some Asian releases of this title are the much shorter 105-minute Chinese theatrical version rather than the international 139-minute version presented here on Zeitgeist's DVD.
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Colorful, but sad
Added 7/7/2008
This film starts out with a great deal of gusto - unfortunately, too many underdeveloped characters are introduced into the story which makes it progressively slower and less interesting.
The plot involves young people drawn to Beijing for work in various industries, but most of the action takes place at an amusement park with replicas of famous places around the world- The Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Manhattan, Egyptian Pyramids, Leaning Tower of Pisa, etc. As we get deeper into the lives of the characters, we find they are not happy with their work situations in Beijing. No doubt they feel trapped in low-wage jobs that leave them unfulfilled and yearning for something more. Their personal lives are not going that great either- with cheating boyfriends & girlfriends, separations from children and spouses, problems with siblings, etc. I think "The World" is suffocated by the overwhelming sadness that touches the lives of the characters and the birth of 21st century Beijing. This film even has you feeling a deep sorrow for the camel who is used as a live prop for the Egyptian Pyramid display. There he stands, alone in his boredom, tethered to a boulder in a barren landscape for the amusement of paying guests. The end of the story is nothing short of perplexing. Watch this film, but be forewarned: this is no merry romp through an amusement park.
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Intriguing film
Added 8/20/2007
The World is aptly named; it's set in Beijing's World Park--a real theme park in China's capital, complete with miniature versions of landmark buildings and monuments from all over the world including, in this film, the often-mentioned Eiffel Tower, as well as the pyramids of Egypt, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Moscow's Red Square, the Taj Mahal, and so on.
The director, Zhang Ke Jia, focuses on a number of younger people (in their 20s) who work at World Park, interleaving their lives with each other to ultimately present a vision of 21st century urban China. This has a markedly different feel and tone from his earlier Unknown Pleasures, set in a rural provincial area, and from my point of view, is all the better for that change of setting.
The underlying thematic feel of the film is the inevitability of ephemeral relationships given not so much the availability of current technologies like the cell phone, but more so the reliance on them and, maybe most importantly, the enormous degree to which people's psychologies have been changed by these technologies. In fact, this short-lived nature of relationships, indicates Zhang, is inextricably enmeshed in the existence of World Park itself. People want to see and hear the world, all of the world, as quickly as possible, and World Park gives them that opportunity, even if in a fake kind of way--just like cell phones give people the opportunity to connect to anyone anywhere at any time, just as the Internet itself does.
But it's this instant "connectability" that also fosters relationships that cannot last. Tao, the female lead and a dancer at the World Park, has a strong emotional connection with her boyfriend Taisheng, a security guard in the same place. But he cannot commit; he cheats on her; she finds out. Meanwhile, another relationship is characterized by a boyfriend who always wants to know where his girlfriend has been, always asking her the same question--as if desperately trying to reverse this instant "everywhere at once" psychology that current technologies--and World Park itself--perpetuates.
This is a truly intriguing film, because it probes more deeply than a lot of other films have managed to do the nature of how globalization has effected a paradigm shift in how we think about our relationships with others, how we see ourselves--or maybe don't see ourselves too well at all--in the context of the world, and how we cope with those around us who have, just like us, changed--likely in the same way we have.
Highly recommended. A real find and worthy of the high praise it's received from a number of critics.
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Ponderous
Added 1/26/2007
This movie is set in a theme park in China, where some of the more famous monuments of the world (the Eiffel tower, the Statue of Liberty) are reproduced in a much reduced scale. Meanwhile, the workers at the park live empty, unsatisfying lives, overburdened with work and empty of personal projects for the future. The main point of this movie seems to be that capitalism and modernization might have brought prosperity to some in China, but not to the majority of the chinese people, and in any case it has left the country spiritually void, without a common goal for the people with the exception of making money. Director Jia Zhang-Ke might be right in his analysis, but did he need to tell this story in such a ponderous, gloomy manner?.
1 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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