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Unknown Pleasures is a film of genre Drama directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯) released in USA on 29 september 2002 with Zhao Tao
Unknown Pleasures (2002)
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Add to a movie listUnknown Pleasures (Chinese: 任逍遥; pinyin: Rèn xiāo yáo; literally: "Free from all constraints") is a 2002 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke, starring Wu Qiong, Zhao Weiwei and Zhao Tao as three disaffected youths living in Datong in 2001, part of the new "Birth Control" generation. Fed on a steady diet of popular culture, both Western and Chinese, the characters of Unknown Pleasures represent a new breed in the People's Republic of China, one detached from reality through the screen of media and the internet.
The film was a co-production of four countries: Japan's Office Kitano and T-Mark, China's Hu Tong Communications, France's Lumen Films, and South Korea's E-Pictures. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival but would eventually lose to director Roman Polanski's Holocaust film, The Pianist.
Unknown Pleasures is Jia's third feature film after 1997's Xiao Wu and 2000s Platform, and it is sometimes considered the final film of an informal trilogy on a modern China in transition. The film also marked Jia's last production outside of the Chinese studio system. With 2004's The World, Jia would work with the approval of the state film bureaucrats (SARFT).
Synopsis
Unknown Pleasures follows three disaffected, aimless young people in the industrial city of Datong in China's Shanxi province throughout 2001. Nineteen-year-old Bin Bin (Zhao Weiwei) lives with his mother, an adherent of the Falun Gong, in a small apartment near Datong's textile mill. Bin Bin's best friend, the reckless Xiao Ji (Wu Qiong), lives in an even smaller apartment with his father, and spends his time riding his motorbike around the city. The two friends eventually meet Qiao Qiao, a young singer and dancer working for the Mongolian King Liquor company as a spokesmodel. Xiao Ji immediately becomes enamored with Qiao Qiao, which gets him in trouble with Qiao Qiao's boyfriend, the loan shark and local thug, Qiao San (Li Zhubin).Actors
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Suggestions of similar film to Unknown Pleasures
There are 16 films with the same actors, 15 films with the same director, 86743 with the same cinematographic genres (including 11773 with exactly the same 2 genres than Unknown Pleasures), to have finally 70 suggestions of similar films.If you liked Unknown Pleasures, you will probably like those similar films :
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, 19minutesDirected by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
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Le film raconte les retrouvailles de quatre amis de collège.
Platform (2001)
, 2h34Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
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Still Life (2006)
, 1h48Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
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Still Life is set in Fengjie, a city upstream of the massive Three Gorges Dam. Now marked for flooding, the city undergoes a process of self-deconstruction. Into this dying town comes Han Sanming, a coal-miner from the province of Shanxi who has returned in search of a wife who ran away sixteen years ago. Upon arriving, he asks a local motorcyclist to drive him to his former address on "Granite Street." The driver takes him to the river bank, revealing that his entire neighborhood has been flooded since the building of the dam. After a failed attempt to obtain his wife's information from the local municipal office, Han Sanming settles into a local hotel. Sanming's next stop is a rickety boat owned by his wife's elder brother. The brother informs Sanming that his wife and daughter (the real reason for his return) work downriver in Yichang but that if he remains in the city, they will eventually return.
Ash Is Purest White (2018)
, 2h16Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
Origin Chine
Genres Drama, Crime, Romance
Actors Zhao Tao, Liao Fan, Feng Xiaogang, Xu Zheng, Diao Yi'nan, Zhang Yibai
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À Datong, une histoire d'amour difficile relie l'ancienne danseuse Qiao et le gangster Bin, de 2001 à 2017.
Pickpocket (1997)
, 1h48Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
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The film is set in 1997, with the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong being mentioned in the background. The place is a small provincial town, dirty and poor. Xiao Wu is one of a group of pickpockets, most of whom have moved on to become small traders and legal or semi-legal. One of them, formerly a close friend, is getting married and decides not to invite Xiao Wu, a reminder of the past. He drifts around, discontent with this, but makes no effort to change. He acquires a girlfriend, a prostitute who takes a liking to him, but she drops him when she gets some better prospect. He visits his poor-peasant family but ends up quarrelling with his parents and saying he won't ever come back. Finally he gets arrested and we last see him handcuffed in the middle of the street with a disapproving crowd watching him. There is a big crack-down on crime, something mentioned at the start of the film, so his fate is likely to be harsh.
The World (2005)
, 2h13Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
Genres Drama, Comedy-drama
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Rating70%
The World tells the story of two workers at Beijing World Park: a performer, Tao (played by actress Zhao Tao), and Taisheng (Chen Taisheng), a security guard and Tao's boyfriend. As the film begins, Tao is visited by her ex-boyfriend, who is on his way to Ulan Batur. Taisheng meets Tao and the ex-boyfriend at a small diner and insists on driving him to the Beijing Railway Station. From this awkward introduction, the relationship between Tao and Taisheng grows increasingly strained. Taisheng, frustrated that Tao refuses to have sex with him, is also busy with fellow migrants from his home province of Shanxi. One, Chen Zhijun nicknamed "Little Sister," is a childhood friend of Taisheng's and comes to him looking for a job. Taisheng manages to put him in touch with someone and he eventually finds work as a construction worker.
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, 1h52Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
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Une cité ouvrière est détruite au profit d’un complexe d’appartements de luxe.
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, 2h6Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
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Genres Drama, Romance
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films, Films set in the future
Actors Zhao Tao, Sylvia Chang
Rating68%
The film has three parts, set in the 1990s, the present and in Australia in the year 2025, respectively.
A Touch of Sin (2013)
, 2h13Directed by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
Origin Chine
Genres Drama, Action, Adventure, Crime
Themes Films about sexuality, Sports films, Erotic films, Films about prostitution, Martial arts films, Wuxia films, Erotic thriller films
Actors Zhao Tao, Wang Hongwei, Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
Rating71%
Set in the present and based on allegedly true events from the recent past, the film also draws on the history of wuxia stories. The title in Chinese, 天注定 (Tian zhuding) is literally translated as "heavenly fate" or "fated doom," while its English title is a reference to King Hu's 1971 action epic A Touch of Zen, one of the most influential wuxia films.
Xiao Shan Going Home (1995)
, 59minutesDirected by Jia Zhang-ke (贾樟柯)
Genres Drama
Actors Wang Hongwei
Rating58%
Xiao Shan, un employé intérimaire du restaurant Hongyuan, vient d'être licencié par son patron Zhao Guoqing. Décidant de quitter Pékin et de rentrer chez lui à Anyang, il va voir une série de personnes de sa ville natale qui vivent également à Pékin - ouvriers du bâtiment, vendeurs de billets de train, étudiants d'université, préposés, prostituées – mais personne ne veut rentrer avec lui. Découragé et confus, il cherche un à un ses anciens amis qui sont encore à Pékin. Finalement, il laisse ses longs cheveux sauvages, symbole de sa vie en ville, chez un coiffeur en bord de route, en guise d'offrande à Pékin.