I won't go into the plot too much, because no summary can do it justice. The plot just happens - you feel the progression, and you move with it. Knowing more than the premise before hand could seriously dampen the experience. Basically, it revolves around two boys from different places in life, both holding on to ownership of one bicycle. To both of them, it is integral, though for different reasons. Conflict is everywhere and feels so natural and un-forced that you really feel guilty for not getting in and stopping it.

Xiaoshuai Wang is a brilliant filmmaker, and I'm dying to see more of his work. His pacing and visual style has elements of Kurosawa, Kubrick, and Hitchcock. And I can confidently put him into their ranks. This film is on par with any that they have made. For a film so early in the career of a director, we have a lot to look forward to from him. I only hope that he is able to keep doing tight, character driven dramas like this and is not dragged into the big-budget, impersonal kind of filmmaking.

The acting is incredible. All of the characters are well developed and played flawlessly. Cui Lin does an amazing job of playing Guei. Throughout his character is restrained because of his status in life, but underneath this restraint is clear emotion that makes us feel for the character even more. And at the end of the film, where he cannot hold in his emotions any longer, the painful restraint shown throughout the rest of the film compliments it and makes it an even more remarkable performance in hindsight. He brings a depth to Guei that is unlike anything I have seen from an American film. Li Bin likewise does a beautiful job as Jian. He has an easier role to play, but that fact doesn't diminish the performance he gives. They both shared the New Talent award at the Berlin Film Festival.

The score is very minimal, but is one of the most beautiful I have heard, particularly in modern Asian films. When there is no orchestrated score, the sounds of bicycles serve the same purpose. This works very well, as does everything Xiaoshuai Wang does with the film.

This film really surprised me. I expected it to be fun and beautiful, but my mouth still stands agape to Beijing Bicycle. I can't stress enough how good this is, or how essential it is for anyone who enjoys films. If you are lucky enough to have it plying near you, go see it. The visuals of the film are best served on a large palate. If not, get a hold of the DVD. In all likelihood it will take home the 'best foreign film' prize at next year's academy awards, but because it was released so early, and so limited, its possible that it will be overlooked. This film could beat Crouching Tiger blindfolded and with its hands tied behind its back.

'Beijing Bicycle' has been compared to Vittorio de Sica's 'The Bicycle Thief,' a classic of decades ago, but this film is a landmark classic that raises the bar on movies about poverty and the city. The director, Wang, is being called a 6th generation Chinese film director, from a long tradition of great movie-making despite the political censorship inherent in communist China. I am sure the censors let this one through because of the theme of peasant nobility and capitalist corruption. They let this one pass because it also shows the tremendous urban development of China's ancient capital, where great projects of high-rise housing are dwarfing and replacing the old hardscrabble alleyways. It is clear that Chinese entrepreneurs are beginning to accumulate great wealth as capitalistic enterprises are being not only tolerated, but encouraged by the old guard, who are realizing the tremendous economic potential of a billion energetic and hardworking people.

Since China is becoming more open and industrialized, not to mention technologically sophisticated, the powers that be are showing off with this stunning film. Beijing is beginning to rival Tokyo in terms of developing garish areas of entertainment, including the adrenalin-rushing venues of video games and carnival arcades, populated by hopping and harem-scarem teenagers. There is a pulsating intensity that is almost New York City or Las Vegas, luring the kids to blow their allowances, cut school and smoke cigarettes. Into this hodge-podge of posh high-rise hotels and down-and-dirty slums we have a voyeuristic view of present-day Beijing.

If you were a normal American tourist, you would never see this interior view, so the movie is worth the price of a socio-anthropological tour that would have cost in 5 or 6 figures. Therefore, the movie is a great bargain because in less than two hours the viewer is exposed to cinema art at its highest level, with a synthesis of a classic story, one dramatic situation after another, subtle and powerful acting, original and creative cinematography, tied together with a pounding and relentless soundtrack that keeps the forward motion escalating to the very end.

The Shakespearean plot is mindful of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'West Side Story.' The protagonists are teenagers, but the story is such that this over-used American term simply does not apply. These adolescents are young men and young women. And what emerges is the fact of China's one-child policy, in which many female newborns were dispatched, leaving the present China with many more young men than young women. At a billion and growing, China needed birth control. They formulated a plan and enforced it. Now what is the fallout?

The consequence of this policy seems to lead to white-hot competition between the males, and therefore gets primitively brutal at times. That has always been the case, given human nature, but we see that Chinese young men have not developed their aggression to the point of shooting up their classmates. They are not above braining each other every now and then with a brick, but bruised and bloody, they wake up from being knocked out and are ready for more conflict. Their 5000 year civilization keeps them trying to compromise and halting their aggression just short of murder, unlike the Europeans.

The competition is naturally about who's going to win the heart of the lovely girl. In this bicycle film, the heroes are those who can do the greatest tricks with a bike, and especially the latest mountain bikes, with shock absorbers, rugged tires and multiple gears. They can bounce up steps with them, whirl around on wheelies and even maintain a precarious balance while stationary. The girl is attracted to the Marlon Brando type who performs the best tricks bare-chested and who is cool enough to smoke cigarettes and carry a Zippo lighter. Instead of motorcycle gangs, the rich boys ride their daredevil bikes up the high stories of construction sites.

If you know anything about Beijing, it is a city of millions of bikes, swarming like taxis in New York. Most are for simple transportation to and from work and shopping, but some are used to transport multiple birdcages and even mattresses. One bike is shown failing to support a refrigerator! The camera is everywhere, recording the waves of bicycles amid the swarms of automobiles, from ground-level up, through flashing spokes and chains, to panoramic views from above. The camera shows the poor neighborhoods with newcomers brushing their teeth in the street, even sharing a toothbrush, as well as the interior of posh hotels, where the hapless bicycle messenger must undress completely and take a shower in order to deliver a message to a Mr. Zhou. We find Mr. Zhou getting a comically assisted workout by the masseur and he is not the right Zhou. There are many Zhou's in China! 'Try Zhou Yimou' is the inside joke, as that is the name of the director's mentor, the Great Zhou.

The bicycle messenger is a stubborn lad from the country and gets caught in a revolving door and into the machinations of the new posh living, and thus we are caught in the never-ending struggle between wealth and poverty, sophistication and ignorance. No need to go into the details of the story--- suffice it to say it is a gripping one, a coming together of age-old irresolvable conflict, that of young men looking for romance and poor people looking for a better life. As we observe the young men, struggling with inborn instincts of sex and aggression, there is sure to be shock, pain, bloodshed and important lessons learned. The audience of this great film is privileged to observe them as it was, first hand.

"Beijing Bicycle" has a superficial similarity to "The Bicycle Thief," a true classic, but it presents a darker and deeper story. Set in Beijing it tracks the efforts of a young man from the countryside to find his self-sufficient place in a bustling and rawly energetic city. For him, obtaining a position as a bicycle messenger for a company serving the commercial firms of the city seems to be a satisfactory end, not a beginning as it probably would be were this film set in a Western metropolis.

For a New Yorker, where bicycle messengers are simultaneously often hated and frequently and with good measure feared, the operation of the Beijing counterpart, with messengers uniformly attired and equipped with identical mountain bikes, is both strange and familiar.

Central to the film is the theft of the coveted bicycle one day before it would become the personal property of the messenger (the company's scheme allows employees to earn ownership after what appears to be a short period of service). The bike turns up in the hands of a post-high school youth, part of a loose gang of bicycle worshipers. Much of the story revolves around the subsequent relay race of seizures of the bike with attendant and escalating violence.

The intensity of the competition between two young men for the bike reflects its importance not only economically (bikes appear in huge numbers in wide shots of broad avenues and busy streets) but also personally. These young men probably don't even have nocturnal fantasies of car ownership.

A wary but real bond develops between the suitors for bike ownership and the violence that engulfs them is palpably real and painful to watch. There is no real resolution for either of them it seems.

"Beijing Bicycle" would have benefited from some judicious editing and the deletion of an extraneous secondary story line (or two) that detracts from the main tale. The score is very nice and the acting strong. This is not the Beijing of Tianamen Square or of the flourishing fast food outlets. It is, however, a Beijing that has a number of striking similarities to neighborhoods known to many of us. And in that lies the film's interest and attractiveness.