24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) (2008)

91% of critics liked it
(33 reviews)
68% of users liked it
(975 ratings)

When the state-owned Factory 420 becomes a luxury apartment complex known as "24 City," the stories of three generations and eight characters meld together to offer an intimate glimpse into the history of China. The line between documentary and fiction blurs as the towering factories on which… More When the state-owned Factory 420 becomes a luxury apartment complex known as "24 City," the stories of three generations and eight characters meld together to offer an intimate glimpse into the history of China. The line between documentary and fiction blurs as the towering factories on which socialism was built are dismantled and employees are laid off, paving the way for a free-market economy. Located in Sichuan's capital city of Chengdu, the 420 plant used to produce airplane engines. For more than 50 years, it was the center of life for hundreds of workers. Now, as builders prepare to transform the factory into luxury condos, interviews with real workers and ex-workers are intercut with vignettes about a lonely Shanghai woman (Joan Chen) exiled in Chengdu, a mother (Lu Liping) who lost her son on the long trip from Shenyang, and a young professional (Zhao Tao) pondering the uncertain fate faced by her elderly working-class parents. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Play Trailer

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 47 min.
Directed By: Zhang Ke Jia
Written By: Jia Zhang Ke, Zhai Yongming
Genres: Documentary, Drama, Art House & International

In Theaters: May 17, 2008 Wide
On DVD: Jan 12, 2010
Studio: FilmsWeLike

Critic Reviews

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
The director has an exquisite eye that keeps getting stronger and subtler. He trusts that beauty is vagueness's alluring upside.
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
24 City won't change the minds of detractors -- it is his most painfully slow yet -- but it might change the minds of his supporters, including this critic, for Jia attempts something that is, in the end, unforgivable.
V.A. Musetto, New York Post
The result is surprisingly engrossing -- even lively, due in part to brief musical numbers inserted amid the interviews.
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
Mr. Jia is an artist, one of the most interesting filmmakers working anywhere in the world, and he made his film to bear witness to a way of life while witnesses could still be found.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times
The actors in 24 City, an experimental fiction-nonfiction hybrid, bring their own existential realities to their short, touching performances.
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
This subversively old-fashioned hymn to industrial production is filled with offbeat, vaguely absurd details.
Derek Malcolm, This is London
Zhangke never hints much about politics ... His is more the story of ordinary people caught up in history and still determined to live their lives as well as they can. It's both relevant and resonant.
Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
History weaves in and out of faces that purl their monologues -- real or scripted -- as Jia presents the past as a giant, invisible river.
Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall
An intriguing hybrid of fiction and documentary, this film chronicles the dismantling of a notorious factory in Chengdu to make way for a new luxury community. It's skilfully assembled, but a bit dry for Western audiences.
Carmen Grey, Total Film
Punctuated with eyebrow-raising poems about aeronautics factories, its treacle-paced obliqueness will frustrate some viewers. But the pay-off's a layered, haunting portrait of China in its shift to a capitalist economy.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
A deeply serious and sombre film, trying to find a way of telling the stories of people affected by the gigantic political and economic changes sweeping that country whose concerns must in the end affect us all: 21st-century China.
Matt Bochenski, Little White Lies
Enthralling, beguiling and haunting.
Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph
Chinese arthouse fixture Jia Zhang Ke looks at the closure of a state-owned factory in Chengdu, combining real interviews with awkwardly am-dram mock ones.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out
The film takes on an operatic feel, moving between euphoria for the new and lament for the lost.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Reflective historical documentary on ordinary Chinese workers.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
As far as nonfiction goes, you probably won't seen anything else this year so beautifully filmed.
Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
This blending of the truth and invention is a key plank of Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke's work, which skates so close to documentary it is hard to spot the join.
Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru
Compelling and provocative with powerful images and quietly moving interviews that shed light on impact of social, economical and political changes on factory workers in China.
Jennifer Merin, About.com
Jia Zhangke uses documentary and narrative storytelling in "24 City," an extraordinary chronicling of how deconstruction of an aviation factory in Chengdu, China, effects the lives of 30,000 workers for whom the factory was not just a job, but a way of li

Read all 19 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

Walter M

Thankfully, "24 City" is not a continuation of the television series "24." All kidding aside, it is easier to describe what "24 City" is not, than what it is. Ostensibly, it is about the tearing down of Factory 420 in Chengdu City in order to make way… More
Thankfully, "24 City" is not a continuation of the television series "24." All kidding aside, it is easier to describe what "24 City" is not, than what it is. Ostensibly, it is about the tearing down of Factory 420 in Chengdu City in order to make way for luxury apartments. That is only a starting point for an exploration of the recent history of China as it has moved from a country always on a war footing to one that is now ruled by capital, with the airplanes once made in the factory now museum pieces. This is told through static interviews with former workers, managers and others involved in the factory, the last of whom being Su Na(Tao Zhao), a professional shopper who frequently travels to Hong Kong for her clients. And as you can see and I have read elsewhere, some of these subjects are played by actors and I am not really sure which ones are which. One interviewee, Gu Minhua, who claims she was once compared to Joan Chen is actually Joan Chen. So, basically, "24 City" sits on the edge of documentary and experiment, not totally successful, that maybe should have been attempted on a stage, instead.

Cast

Joan Chen
as Gu Minhua (Little Flower)
Lu Liping
as Hao Dali
Tao Zhao
as Su Na

Chen Jianbin
as Zhao Gang

24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) (2008)

Critic Reviews

Featured Audience Ratings

Walter M

Cast

Photos

Trailers & Clips

More Like This