On the Beat (1995)

On the Beat () is a 1995 Chinese film directed by Ning Ying. It is the second film in Ning Ying's Beijing Trilogy, a collection of three films that follows the massive changes to Beijing in the last decades of the twentieth century. Whereas Ning's previous film, For Fun dealt with the older generation, On the Beat is firmly focused on the story of the middle-aged. I Love Beijing, meanwhile, would follow characters belonging Beijing's younger generations. On the Beat was coproduced by Eurasia Communications, Euskal Media and the state-operated Beijing Film Studio. Some funding was also from the International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund.

On the Beat follows a group of police officers in the Deshengmen Precinct during the slow months of winter. The policemen, stuck in the dull winter months of Beijing, get stuck in routine, only occasionally finding excitement, as when they chase after a rabid dog.

Released in 1995, On the Beat made the rounds of most of the major international film festivals, including Toronto, Telluride and San Sebastian, among others.

Synopsis

On the Beat consists mainly of a series of vignettes involving members of a local precinct in the Beijing Public Security Bureau. Filmed in the slow months of December, January, and February the members of the PSB find they have little in the way of substantive police work. Instead they spend time (and manpower) on small incidents like the chasing of a possibly rabid dog, the arrest of a small-time con artist, and the reprimanding of a man who sells posters of a woman in a bathing suit.

Actors