Unknown Pleasures (2002) on Netflix
In Datong, unemployed Bin Bin and his reckless friend Xiao Ji drift through days of television and motorbike rides. Then Xiao Ji falls for Qiao Qiao, a liquor company's singing spokesmodel.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on Prime
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.8/102,874 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bin Bin, nineteen, shares a cramped flat with his mother, who follows Falun Gong, close to the textile mill in Datong. He has no job and passes afternoons watching television with his girlfriend Yuan Yuan, who wants to study international trade at a university in Beijing. His best friend Xiao Ji is more reckless, rides a motorbike through the industrial city and lives with his father in quarters even smaller. The pair meet Qiao Qiao, who sings and dances for the Mongolian King Liquor company as its spokesmodel. Xiao Ji is drawn to her at once, which brings him into conflict with her boyfriend Qiao San, a moneylender and thug who carries a gun.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Unknown Pleasures (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Unknown Pleasures was shot on digital video in only nineteen days, a schedule forced on Jia Zhangke by time and budgetary constraints.
- Because digital cameras made the production more streamlined and easier to move, Jia Zhangke began shooting Unknown Pleasures just three weeks after he came up with the idea.
SPOILER
The closing shot of Xiao Ji riding down a highway as a thunderstorm approaches, which Jia Zhangke said complemented the character's inner feelings, could not have been captured with traditional film cameras; digital video made it possible.- Digital video had drawbacks of its own: Jia Zhangke and cinematographer Yu Lik-wai were forced to cut back on exterior scenes because of how the format performed in sunlight.
- Unknown Pleasures was Jia Zhangke's last production outside the Chinese studio system; with 2004's The World he went on to work with the approval of the state film bureaucrats of SARFT.
