I Love Beijing (2001)

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

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)

Trailer

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