- Note: Blu-ray discs are in a high definition format and need to be played on a Blu-ray player. To find out more about Blu-ray, visit our Hi-Def Learn & Shop store.
- Important Information on Firmware Updates: Having trouble with your Blu-ray disc player? Will certain discs just not play? You may need to update the firmware inside your player. Click here to learn more.
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Reviews
Product Description
The fourth feature by internationally acclaimed auteur Jia Zhang-ke was also his breakout success, an epic with a canvas as vast, and intimate, as its title suggests: a state-of-the-modern-world address, and a look at the insular world of a troupe of Chinese stage-performers dreaming of freedom... Zhao Tao, Jia's muse, is one of these troupers. For Tao and the larger ensemble of pageant performers at Beijing's real-life World Park (a sprawling hyper-pastiche of global landmarks famous sites from five continents), love is respite from work, work is respite from love, and the line that extends from the past to the future loses all definition beyond the present. A testament to the wisdom of this young filmmaker who arrived in the late 1990s with Xiao-wu and, in 2000, Platform (regarded by many to be the greatest film of the 2000s), The World provides an image of globalisation as a paradox: at once a phenomenon rooted in social control, and a network that allows connection across individual people and populations. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this modern classic by renowned Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke, shot in 25p HD, to Blu-ray for the first time ever. Special Features: Gorgeous 25fps transfer of the film in its original frame-rate and 2.35:1 aspect ratio *New and improved English subtitle translations *TONY RAYNS ON THE WORLD: new and exclusive video introduction to the film by scholar and critic Tony Rayns *MADE IN CHINA: a 65-minute documentary on the making of THE WORLD. *THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JIA ZHANG-KE: a 24-minute video interview with filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke. *A lengthy booklet containing a new essay about the film by Tony Rayns; an essay by Jia Zhang-ke; and a special dossier-afterword with further commentary on certain elements of the film and its ending.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Zhang Ke Jia's The World is a great location in search of a movie. Set in a Beijing theme park recreating the major cities of Europe dominated by a one-third scale replica of the Eiffel Tower and dealing with the employees and their friends, it's really just comes over as a whole lot of nothing. Scenes may be true to life but they're trivial and, like the characters, never really go anywhere. That may well be the point, but that doesn't make watching it easy going. There's possibly something about the globalization of Chinese culture lurking in their somewhere and the contrast between the glamorous face of modern China vs the poor quality of life for migrant workers, but nothing really comes through because the characters are so univolving. Instead it's like watching people out of a bus window on a rainy day while waiting for the traffic lights to change, images washing over you inoffensively but without leaving any lasting impression as you move on.
Be aware that some Asian releases of this title are the much shorter 105-minute Chinese theatrical version rather than the international 139-minute version presented on Zeitgeist's Region 1 NTSC DVD and Eureka's UK Blu-ray.
Be aware that some Asian releases of this title are the much shorter 105-minute Chinese theatrical version rather than the international 139-minute version presented on Zeitgeist's Region 1 NTSC DVD and Eureka's UK Blu-ray.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Keris Nine
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Blu-ray
One of the most important contemporary Chinese filmmakers documenting the profound changes going on in his country, Jia Zhang Ke's use of a theme park in Beijing is an inspired choice of location that brilliantly and profoundly expresses the difficulties facing ordinary Chinese people as their country plunges headlong into modernisation, globalisation and economic reform.
The setting of The World is a theme park of major monuments and attractions from around the world, in reduced scale, the Eiffel Tower sitting alongside the Pyramids, London Bridge and the Piazza San Marco. Working in the park are many immigrants and workers who have travelled from remote country towns, some of them from the director's home town of Fenyang in the Shanxi province, some of them perhaps even the same characters stagnating there during the eighties in his earlier film, Platform. The theme park serves as a powerful metaphor for China's surreal relationship with the rest of the world at a time when, with the Beijing Olympics just around the corner, the country is moving into an international arena, seeing huge reforms and experiencing rapid economic expansion.
Jia's style is still very much low-key in regards to the narrative, though there is a considerable amount of poignancy, humour and irony in the drama of the minor disputes, friendships, affairs and problems faced by simple people with complex emotional lives. Set against the impressive background of reduced world monuments, the false glamour of their professions is at odds with the reality of the conditions they work and live under, and the small scale portraits of little lives caught up in a big machine evidently has implications on a larger scale.... Read more ›
The setting of The World is a theme park of major monuments and attractions from around the world, in reduced scale, the Eiffel Tower sitting alongside the Pyramids, London Bridge and the Piazza San Marco. Working in the park are many immigrants and workers who have travelled from remote country towns, some of them from the director's home town of Fenyang in the Shanxi province, some of them perhaps even the same characters stagnating there during the eighties in his earlier film, Platform. The theme park serves as a powerful metaphor for China's surreal relationship with the rest of the world at a time when, with the Beijing Olympics just around the corner, the country is moving into an international arena, seeing huge reforms and experiencing rapid economic expansion.
Jia's style is still very much low-key in regards to the narrative, though there is a considerable amount of poignancy, humour and irony in the drama of the minor disputes, friendships, affairs and problems faced by simple people with complex emotional lives. Set against the impressive background of reduced world monuments, the false glamour of their professions is at odds with the reality of the conditions they work and live under, and the small scale portraits of little lives caught up in a big machine evidently has implications on a larger scale.... Read more ›
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This latest film from Jia Zhangke is quite his best - I thought that 24 CITY would be hard to beat, but this is even better. Finally, we have a young Chinese director who is showing us a different China - China in transition - not the China of some old dynastic period, but China today. He shows us the massive economic & cultural changes that taking place all over China - with the (sometimes) tragic human consequences. A remarkable director, a remarkable film.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By P. J. Beaver
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
Beautifully filmed, this movie gives insight into the extraordinary world of Chinese theme park performers, the surreal imitation and emotionally dead world in which they find themselves, the pain of their lives, and the problem of trying to find a better future as modernity and progress rushes ahead but with nothing to offer beyond being a part of someone elses spectacle. This in one of those movies that transports you to a real world that you'd rather not be a part of, but in staying there a while you come out feeling richer in the end.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 18 reviews
3.3 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
