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World, The
Zeitgeist Films


9.0

based on 23 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Taisheng Chen, Zhong-wei Jiang, Jue Jing, Yi-qun Wang, and Tao Zhao

Acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhangke casts a compassionate eye on the daily loves, friendships and desperate dreams of the twenty-somethings from China’s remote Provinces who come to live and work at Beijing’s World Park. (Zeitgeist Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Zhang Ke Jia
DIRECTED BY:	Zhang Ke Jia
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 14, 2006 Theatrical: July 1, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	143 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	China / Japan / France
LANGUAGE(S):	Mandarin (with English subtitles)

Original title "Shijie"; Nominated, Golden Lion, 2004 Venice Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This is a brilliant, if challenging, film.

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A film of wonderful looseness and innovation. Set free to film fakes, the director is the real thing.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

With rich irony, The World juxtaposes the teasing, grand images of the outside world's wonders with the insular community and the mundane lives of the park employees.

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A movie with the visual expanse of a John Ford western and the ensemble grandeur and long takes of a Robert Altman picture. The movie is definitely Chinese in content, but it exudes American style and spirit.

100

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The title of Jia Zhang-ke's 2004 masterpiece, The World -- a film that's hilarious and upsetting, epic and dystopian -- is an ironic pun and a metaphor.

100

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

A heartbreaking, beautiful movie that gains strength from its deep characterizations.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The comic, tragic and monumentally beautiful new film by writer-director Jia Zhangke (Platform).

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A remarkable film.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

It's a magnificent film – thoughtful but not distant, aesthetically and technically sophisticated but staged with restraint and delicacy.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The director is becoming a master of blending the political and the personal with eloquence and deceptive lightness.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Jia's compassion for the drifting souls struggling to create a life for themselves in such a transitory existence makes the metaphor resonant.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

On a first viewing, the movie seemed a dilution of the formal strategies Jia had perfected-at once less dispassionate and less empathetic. After a repeat viewing, it still strikes me as Jia's fourth-best film (that it's one of the year's best says plenty about the level at which he's working), but it's more apparent that The Worl d's muffled emotional impact should be understood as a function of its setting.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Maverick Chinese director Jia Zhangke examines the rapidly changing face of China as its economy edges further toward a modified form of market capitalism with yet another complex, multicharacter masterpiece.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

If a movie can be stark and rapturous at the same time, this is that movie.

The Hollywood Reporter Andrew Sun

It's a splendid microcosm of contemporary China's aspirations and shortcomings.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is long and slow. Either you will fall into its rhythm, or you will grow restless.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's a fine film, full of small epiphanies.

Variety David Rooney

While the film feels overlong at two hours 20 minutes, there's a seductive stillness to its enveloping mood.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Loosely constructed, The World drifts along pleasantly for much of its two-and-a-half-hour running time. Mr. Jia has a terrific eye and an almost sculptural sense of film space (especially in close quarters), and he brings texture and density to even the most nondescript rooms.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Jia's message is that globalization has failed to help the Chinese masses. We hear you, dude, but did you really need 143 minutes to get your point across?

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The World has a pokey pace, but it presents a uniquely powerful look at the new big kid in the global economy.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The World's dull weave of frustrated romances and worker exploitation is far too obvious, and Jia can only relieve the tedium so many times.

Film Threat Stina Chyn

One of the oddest and surely the longest cinematic experiences you may ever encounter.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ziv S gave it a9:
Behind the scenes look at the lives of 20-30 year olds in China all taking place inside a giant theme park. That was enough to get me to watch, and I'm glad I did.

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World, The Zeitgeist Films

World, The
Zeitgeist Films