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Beijing Rocks
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List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $16.99
Your Save: $ 1.99 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Mega Stars
Starring: Richard Ng, Geng Le, Shu Qi, Daniel Wu, Faye Yue
Directed By: Mabel Cheung
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: DVD
EAN: 4895017003856
Format: Dolby
Label: Mega Stars
Manufacturer: Mega Stars
Publisher: Mega Stars
Region Code: 0
Release Date: 2006-10-23
Studio: Mega Stars
Theatrical Release Date: 2001
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Editorial Reviews:
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Asian exclusive release directed by Mabel Cheung ('Soong Sisters' & 'Autumn's Tale') starring by Shu Qi ('Gorgeous' & 'Transporter') & Daniel Wu ('Gen-X Cops' & 'Purple Storm'). Wandering through the Great Wall, the Imperial Palace, the Tienanmen Square, as well as the chic embassy districts are our three main characters. An impetuous Beijing rock & roll singer in search of recognition & a Hong Kong born & overseas educated composer in search of himself. All Code/NTSC in original Mandarin with optional English & Chinese subtitles. 105 minutes. 2002.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but scattered
Comment: Beijing Rocks
2001 dir Mable Cheung, producer/writer Alex Law
Interesting but scattered 4*
As the film opens, we see Michael [Daniel Wu] being driven in a taxi or limo through Beijing, with stereotypical Chinese music soundtrack and travelogue-style images of touristy Chinese life. The impression given is certainly that he is just arriving in the city, though given the music-video style and structure of the film it's hard to say for sure. If so, the next scene is some time later, when Michael is at a nightclub with a band onstage led by a long haired, bare-chested singer, and a blonde-wigged dancer / hanger on. For no apparent reason the manager has the singer's mic cut off, he objects forcefully, and an argument then brawl ensues. Yoiks! the fuzz is called, and the band (and blonde) make their escape ... on bicycles! [Er, what happened to their equipment?]
Michael then talks to the camera, and tells a bit of his story. Raised in Hong Kong and the US, both his "Chinese" [by this does he mean Mandarin? Cantonese is the major dialect in HK.] and English are poor, and his father brought him to Beijing to improve his Mandarin and make connections. The father is a "builder", a big shot in HK [and obviously with influence in Beijing also]. Michael has aspirations as a singer/songwriter, but little success so far. He has been involved in a mysterious incident in a poolhall and has to remain in China until his court date.
Next thing, Michael runs into the band at an outdoor restaurant, still carrying a pair of drumsticks he picked up at the imbroglio. Introductions are made -- the band is Moonwatchers, the singer is "Road," the girl is Yang Yin, Road's girlfriiend and a dancer for "The Glorious Sun Dog", and each member gives a mini-bio, an interesting and varied crew. Michael ingratiates himself, and is adopted as a sort of mascot, but also distanced, not taken seriously, because of his silver-spoon, foreign origins.
One day Michael follows an advertising truck to The Glorious Sun Dog, a sort of carny or travelling vaudeville outfit, and during Yang Yin's act (a "striptease" in which nothing much comes off. sorry, guys!) she starts a fight with a heckler and winds up at the police station. Aha, we see a pattern here! the feisty temperaments of Road and Yang Yin both bring them together passionately and cause inevitable friction which drives them apart.
The Glorious Sun Dog goes on tour, and Moonwatchers goes with them to help pay off Yang Yin's fine. Michael wangles his way into the band and onto the tour. And inevitably Michael begins to fall for Yang Yin ... well, what sefl-destructive young man wouldn't? She's beautiful, has a gaeity and playfullness that entice, and at the same time an underlying pathos that brings out the protective instinct. And thus ends the setup. How will Michael's legal troubles work out? What will happen with his, and with Road's, musical careers? How will the triangle between the three resolve?
The acting is by and large excellent. Geng Le adds both charisma and nuance to the role of Road. Shu Qi is perfect as the wild, upbeat mother hen with a bruised core. The rest of the band members are sharply defined, and it's too bad they don't get more script. Daniel Wu is subdued and low affect as Michael -- maybe that's just the character as written, but he could have been more interesting, made us care more. The music is not bad, both Moonwatchers and the other band or two we see in the background (without speaking Mandarin, it's hard to judge Road's lyrics -- are we supposed to see a progression from rather silly and forced to actually pretty good? or is that just in translation?), and the street and bar scenes provide an interesting view of non-tourist Beijing. The relation between the three main characters is well done, and each has a backstory (though to some extent these seem kind of forced).
But the the major event of the end game is also forced, not flowing from the plot but just happens. Neither of the endings (there is an alternate ending extra) really provide much in the way of resolution, just a rushed sort of winding down. Also, the story of Michael's poolhall incident is dragged out in snippets throughout the film, a conceit which is inobvious until near the end and which hardly seems to add much, much less be necessary -- when we find out what really happened it doesn't change our perception of the main thread of action, nor would it have hurt to know much earlier, in a simple flashback say or even as the introduction of the film But what really causes me to back off from 5* to 4* on this one is the style, or maybe lack of consistent style. The film doesn't seem to know whether it's a music video with a DIY handheld consumer cam aesthetic, a travelogue, or a straight narrative feature, and comes across as a disordered hodgepodge of effects, kind of like the newsletter with twenty fonts produced by someone on their first word processor outing. As with the poolhall incident thread, too much seems done for effect, because it could be done, not to communicate.
So, in summary, worth seeing for a well conceived core story, the acting of Geng Le and Shu Qi, and the Beijing setting. But unfortunately diminished by an inconsistent style, some unclarity of the time line, and a rather forced, tacked on, ending.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This Sexy China...
Comment: A son of a Hong Kong tycoon moved to mainland China attracted with local Western-style rock band tunes to escape from a father's shadow and establish himself as a self-made-man. Accepted by rockers, travels and works with musicians, experiencing personal matters and witnessing strange realities of newly re-united country.
Probably, by so common in rockers' environment motorbike incident (in 1992 Victor Tsoj of Russia, more known regionally among these tragedies) having a death of an innovative band front-man inflicted, an idea of impossibility to speedily modernize a huge populated country is somehow being attempted.
Relatively young age of characters-twenty-twenty five years-allows suggestion that a next movie sequence will reflect a fulfillingly-developed careers of talents in new China, in spite tragedies they overcame at the century fall.
Personally, I like this movie for a vibrant, youth-optimistic, sexy saturation it spreads around.
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