|

Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

20
American Carol, An
xx
Australia
26
Babylon A.D.
24
Bangkok Dangerous
41
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
45
Blindness
57
Body of Lies
67
Bolt
63
Burn After Reading
58
City of Ember
15
College
82
Dark Knight, The
43
Death Race
15
Disaster Movie
43
Eagle Eye
58
Express, The
49
Family That Preys, The
57
Flash of Genius
36
Fly Me to the Moon
54
Get Smart
72
Ghost Town
28
Haunting of Molly Hartley. The
57
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
55
House Bunny, The
35
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
73
Kung Fu Panda
46
Lakeview Terrace
52
Longshots, The
53
Lucky Ones, The
61
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
51
Mamma Mia!
31
Max Payne
43
Meet Dave
37
Miracle at St. Anna
35
Mirrors
34
My Best Friend's Girl
64
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
39
Nights in Rodanthe
45
Pride and Glory
58
Quantum of Solace
53
Quarantine
36
Righteous Kill
53
Rocker, The
59
Role Models
19
Saw V
57
Secret Life of Bees, The
49
Sex Drive
63
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
49
Soul Men
36
Space Chimps
35
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
47
Swing Vote
60
Traitor
71
Tropic Thunder
56
Twilight
70
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
56
W.
93
WALL-E
27
Women, The
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
56
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
93
WALL-E
82
Dark Knight, The
73
Kung Fu Panda
72
Ghost Town
71
Tropic Thunder
70
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
67
Bolt
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
63
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
63
Burn After Reading
61
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
60
Traitor
59
Role Models
58
Express, The
58
Quantum of Solace
58
City of Ember
57
Secret Life of Bees, The
57
Body of Lies
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
57
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
57
Flash of Genius
56
Twilight
56
W.
56
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
55
House Bunny, The
54
Get Smart
53
Quarantine
53
Rocker, The
53
Lucky Ones, The
52
Longshots, The
51
Mamma Mia!
49
Sex Drive
49
Family That Preys, The
49
Soul Men
47
Swing Vote
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
46
Lakeview Terrace
45
Blindness
45
Pride and Glory
43
Eagle Eye
43
Meet Dave
43
Death Race
41
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
39
Nights in Rodanthe
37
Miracle at St. Anna
36
Space Chimps
36
Righteous Kill
36
Fly Me to the Moon
35
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
35
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
35
Mirrors
34
My Best Friend's Girl
31
Max Payne
28
Haunting of Molly Hartley. The
27
Women, The
26
Babylon A.D.
24
Bangkok Dangerous
20
American Carol, An
19
Saw V
15
Disaster Movie
15
College
xx
Australia
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

xx
All of Us
53
Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
57
Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
64
Appaloosa
69
Ashes of Time Redux
68
August Evening
xx
B.O.H.I.C.A.
62
Baghead
84
Ballast
54
Battle in Seattle
xx
Beer for My Horses
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
xx
Billy: The Early Years
66
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
56
Bottle Shock
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
50
Breakfast with Scot
61
Brick Lane
43
Call and Response
62
Changeling
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
Choke
46
Choose Connor
84
Christmas Tale, A
41
Cthulhu
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
xx
Dostana
62
Duchess, The
46
Dukes, The
63
Eden
xx
Eden Lake
66
Elegy
46
Elephant King, The
80
Encounters at the End of the World
26
Everybody Wants to Be Italian
64
Fall, The
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
26
Filth and Wisdom
28
Fireproof
52
First Basket, The
67
Flow: For Love of Water
37
Forever Strong
69
Frontrunners
82
Frozen River
43
Gardens of the Night
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
54
Good Dick
30
Guitar, The
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
44
Henry Poole is Here
31
Hounddog
27
House of the Sleeping Beauties
47
How About You
54
Humboldt County
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
40
Igor
64
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
78
I've Loved You So Long
63
JCVD
41
Johnny Got His Gun
xx
Just Buried
62
Kabluey
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
25
Lake City
78
Last Mistress, The
81
Let the Right One In
xx
Lower Learning
63
Man Named Pearl, A
89
Man on Wire
xx
Mary
xx
Matador, The
62
Mister Foe
84
Momma's Man
51
Morning Light
79
Moving Midway
33
My Name Is Bruce
59
Nights and Weekends
73
Obscene
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
40
Passengers
xx
Phoebe in Wonderland
55
Ping Pong Playa
75
Pool, The
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
82
Rachel Getting Married
56
Religulous
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
xx
Roadside Romeo
53
RocknRolla
56
Save Me
74
Secret, A
45
Shoot on Sight
57
Sixty Six
85
Slumdog Millionaire
56
Special
58
Splinter
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
82
Tell No One
64
Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
57
Towelhead
72
Transsiberian
83
Trouble the Water
43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
61
Universe of Keith Haring
84
Up the Yangtze
52
Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
79
Visitor, The
61
Wackness, The
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Up the Yangtze
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Ballast
84
Momma's Man
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Frozen River
82
Rachel Getting Married
81
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
80
Encounters at the End of the World
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
79
Moving Midway
79
Visitor, The
78
I've Loved You So Long
78
Last Mistress, The
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
75
Pool, The
75
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
74
Secret, A
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Obscene
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
72
Transsiberian
72
I Served the King of England
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Frontrunners
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
67
Synecdoche, New York
67
Flow: For Love of Water
66
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
66
Elegy
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
64
Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
64
Fall, The
64
Appaloosa
64
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Man Named Pearl, A
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Changeling
62
Kabluey
62
Duchess, The
62
Mister Foe
62
Baghead
61
Wackness, The
61
Brick Lane
61
Universe of Keith Haring
59
Nights and Weekends
59
We Are Wizards
58
Splinter
57
Towelhead
57
Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
57
Sixty Six
56
Special
56
Save Me
56
Religulous
56
Bottle Shock
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
55
Ping Pong Playa
54
Humboldt County
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
53
Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
52
First Basket, The
52
Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Choose Connor
46
Elephant King, The
46
Dukes, The
45
Shoot on Sight
44
Henry Poole is Here
43
Call and Response
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Johnny Got His Gun
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
40
Passengers
37
Forever Strong
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
33
My Name Is Bruce
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Everybody Wants to Be Italian
26
Filth and Wisdom
25
Lake City
xx
Dostana
xx
Phoebe in Wonderland
xx
All of Us
xx
Matador, The
xx
Billy: The Early Years
xx
Roadside Romeo
xx
B.O.H.I.C.A.
xx
Eden Lake
xx
Just Buried
xx
Beer for My Horses
xx
Mary
xx
Lower Learning
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
World, The
Zeitgeist Films
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.

90
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
The comic, tragic and monumentally beautiful new film by writer-director Jia Zhangke (Platform).

90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
A remarkable film.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marrit Ingman
It's a magnificent film – thoughtful but not distant, aesthetically and technically sophisticated but staged with restraint and delicacy.

88
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
The director is becoming a master of blending the political and the personal with eloquence and deceptive lightness.

83
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.

80
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.

80
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.

80
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
If a movie can be stark and rapturous at the same time, this is that movie.

80
The Hollywood Reporter
Andrew Sun
It's a splendid microcosm of contemporary China's aspirations and shortcomings.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie is long and slow. Either you will fall into its rhythm, or you will grow restless.

70
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
It's a fine film, full of small epiphanies.
70
Variety
David Rooney
While the film feels overlong at two hours 20 minutes, there's a seductive stillness to its enveloping mood.

70
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.

63
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?

50
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.

50
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.

50
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.
Discuss this movie in our forums |
|