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24 City

Play trailer Poster for 24 City 2008 1h 52m Documentary Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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89% Tomatometer 44 Reviews 72% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Documentary focusing on the lives of eight people affected after a thriving factory in China that provides hundreds of jobs is replaced by an apartment complex.
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24 City

24 City

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Critics Consensus

One of China's most talented directors blurs the lines between non-fiction, drama, and musical theater in this vivid portrait of a country in cultural flux.

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Critics Reviews

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Richard Brody New Yorker Through interviews with retired workers and faux interviews with scripted characters, Jia brings long-repressed history to life on an intimate scale. Jul 23, 2018 Full Review Tony Rayns Sight & Sound 24 City belies its documentary origins with overtly poetic film language: the film is an elegiac visual symphony of carefully framed compositions, trompe l'oeil camera movements, posed portraits, internal rhymes and mysterious vignettes. Jun 18, 2012 Full Review Liam Lacey Globe and Mail A blend of documentary and drama which is by turns movingly authentic and deliberately artificial. Rated: 3/4 Sep 14, 2010 Full Review David Walsh World Socialist Web Site Things are confused here, and the documentary/drama suffers. A lack of social and historical perspective lies at the heart of the problem. Feb 13, 2021 Full Review Mattie Lucas From the Front Row A fascinating and bittersweet film, its structure creating a wholly original and moving viewing experience that takes the plight of people half a world away, and makes it stunningly, hauntingly, our own. Rated: 3/4 Aug 5, 2019 Full Review Donald J. Levit ReelTalk Movie Reviews A fond, quietly ironic look at the past and the present facing the global problem of individual obsolescence and urban uprooting. Feb 11, 2016 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Mila M Beutifull, different world from western culture perspective, we need more this kind of works ! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/16/24 Full Review Audience Member Was it a drama or a documentary, I'm confused. But it was good. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Audience Member Don't go looking for a plot. Instead, embrace this variety of stories from Chengdu, China, residents (real and imagined). In a world where we learn life lessons from "Humans of New York" and TED Talks, the experiences of the film's characters have mass appeal and poignancy. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member Chengdu, oggi. La fabbrica 420 con la sua città operaia modello devono sparire per lasciar spazio a un complesso di appartamenti di lusso: "24 City". Passano sotto i nostri occhi tre generazioni e otto personaggi, dai vecchi operai ai nuovi ricchi, tra la nostalgia del socialismo da parte degli anziani e il desiderio di successo dei giovani. La storia delle loro vite e la storia della Cina. [cinematografo.it] Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member I have been watching a few films that combines elements of documentary and narrative filmmaking lately. This one continues that trend. This film is a series of interviews of a group of people who have worked in Factory 420 in the Chengdu province of China which manufactured airplane parts. Some of the interviews are from real people. Some of it is from actors. Apart of Joan Chen's segments (who is excellent, her segments are the best in the film), I had trouble telling which is which. Some segments of course are better than others. But the film mostly works as a whole and it's gorgeously shot. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member I'm not a fan of documentaries, so 24 City is not really the kind of film I find particularly interesting. That said it is a beautifully shot film, and is fairly interesting in the contrast presented between the three generations all with connections to factory 420. The film becomes even more interesting after discovering that the people interviewed were a combination of 'real' interviews and those performed by actors, calling into question the documentary aspects of the film and the manipulation that is always present within a film, brought forward by the filmmaker. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Read all reviews
24 City

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Movie Info

Synopsis Documentary focusing on the lives of eight people affected after a thriving factory in China that provides hundreds of jobs is replaced by an apartment complex.
Director
Zhang-Ke Jia
Producer
Shozo Ichiyama
Screenwriter
Zhang-Ke Jia, Yongming Zhai
Production Co
Shanghai Film Group
Genre
Documentary, Drama
Original Language
Chinese
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 18, 2010
Runtime
1h 52m
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