Shiqi sui de dan che (Xiaoshuai Wang, 2001)

Beijing Bicycle tells the story of a boy from the countryside who becomes a bicycle courier in Beijing, toiling away to make the company bicycle his own property until it's stolen by a schoolboy his age whose family is too poor to afford one. The film is essentially about the bicycle itself, as a means of livelihood to one and as a must-have peer group accessory for the other, and consequently the whole story revolves around the courier's attempts to retrieve his vital work tool.
The bicycle attains a larger-than-life status as a symbol of a whole host of things, even down to being a critical factor in relations with the opposite sex in Chinese society, which is an intriguing angle. But the courier's unwavering passivity means he never defends himself against those who take advantage of him, and the schoolboy in turn is just a self-pitying weasel, so ultimately it's hard to sympathise with either protagonist. The director gets lost in arousing pity at the cost of making sense.

5/10