The story of young people at a world theme park in Beijing called The World (Shi Jie Gong Yuan).The park contains scale models of the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa etc. The motto is that you can see the world without leaving Beijing. The film details the lives of the young workers there, focusing in particular on the ups and downs of a couple of relationships. Other events: a group of Russian girls arrives to work there; a couple of young men from the countryside come looking for employment; petty corruption and the tragedy of those at the lower part of the economic scale are part of the mix as well. Like other Jia's films, there is not a lot here in terms of plot. But you are nevertheless drawn into the lives of the characters. Just like you can see the world without leaving Beijing, so you can go deeply into the lives of these characters without needing a lot of action to occur. Some don't like Jia's work because of its slow pacing. But I find his work engrossing. His "Still Life" ("San xia hao ren") is my favorite Chinese film. I don't want his movies to move any faster than they do.
