Underplayed Gems

I Love Beijing (2001)

I Love Beijing poster
Original title
夏日暖洋洋
Directed by
Ning Ying
Genre
drama film, romance film
Country
People's Republic of China
Runtime
1h 18m
Rating
6.2 of 10 from 8 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A divorced taxi driver in Beijing drives around the city picking up passengers. He has a series of short relationships with women he meets. He feels disconnected from the fast-changing modern city around him.

melancholicobservationalrestlesslonelyslightly wistfulnaturalisticbittersweetpersonal

What happens

I Love Beijing (simplified Chinese: 夏日暖洋洋; traditional Chinese: 夏日暖樣樣; pinyin: Xiàrì nuǎnyàngyàng; lit. 'The Warmth of Summer') is a 2001 Chinese film directed by Ning Ying. It constitutes the third film in Ning's "Beijing Trilogy," a loose coterie of films detailing the rapid changes that have befallen Beijing in recent decades. In this final installment, a recently divorced cabdriver, Desi (Yu Lei) feels disconnected from the modern city of Beijing as he picks up fares around the city, all while engaging in a series of short-term relationships with the various women he meets. The film was written by Ning and her sister and collaborator, Ning Dai, and was produced by Eurasia Communications and Happy Village. The film's title in Chinese was originally meant to mirror the English title "I Love Beijing." Ning Ying's ambivalence towards the city's modernization, however, made censors concerned that people would interpret the title as sarcastic, leading to the altered title which translates as the "Warmth of Summer." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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