Country: China
Year: 1993
Duration: 95'
Portrait gallery of Chinese youth in Beijing, Beijing za zhong first introduces Karzi, a young man who runs a modest music bar. His girlfriend, Maomao, is pregnant and Karzi insists that she have an abortion. But she refuses and leaves him. The film then moves on to another character, Cui Jian, and his group. Cui Jian is China's first and undoubtedly most famous rock songwriter-singer. Prey to undeclared censorship, Cui Jian sees all his requests to organize a concert rejected by the authorities. We then meet Daging, an unemployed young man who writes to kill time. He decides to help out his painter friend, "Yellow", who's been robbed of all his money. He promises a reward to another man if he manages to find the thief. We then return to Karzi, vainly looking for Maomao everywhere. Smoking a joint, his frustration increases when he has a fantasy image of Maomao aborting. He ends up beating a young stranger in his bar who has gotten into an argument with his girlfriend and called the rockers "a bunch of assholes". Karzi is arrested by police. At the end of the film, Cui Jian writes a new song, "Tolerance". Karzi shaves his head. In a dark hallway of an abandoned building, a thin ray of fight stripes his back; he thinks he can see Maomao giving birth to a child.
Biography
film director
Zhang Yuan
Zhang Yuan was born in the vicinity of Nankin in 1963 and from childhood took an interest in painting, drawing and engraving. Turning increasingly to writing and narration, he curtailed his studies at the Institute of fine Arts to enter the Cinema Academy in Beijing in 1985. Graduating in July 1989, he refused to enter the studio system, preferring to remain on the fringes and find his own financing and outlets. He made commercials and clips for MTV, notably for rock star Cui Jian, who play himself in Beijing Zazhong.
FILMOGRAFIA
Mama (1990), Beijing Zazhong (1993).
Cast
& Credits
Director: Zhang Yuan.
Screenplay: Zhang Yuan, Tang Dalian, Cui Jian.
Director of photography: Zhang Jian.
Editor: Feng Shihai.
Music: Cui Jian, Dou Wei, We Yong.
Sound: Zhai Lixin, Zhen Youying, Wu Gang.
Cast: Cui Jian, Li Wei, Wu Gang, Bian Tianshuo, Tang Dalian, Bian Jing, Wen Li, Yu Feihong.
Production company: Beijing Zazhong Group (Shu Kei, Christopher Doyle, Cui Jian, Zhang Yuan), Flat F, 18/F, 272 Jaffe Road, Hong Kong, tel. +852-5-197729, fax +852-5-199206.
Foreign sales agent: Fortissimo Film Sales, Droogbak 4, NL-1013 Amsterdam, tel. +31-20-6273215, fax +31-20-6261255.
Screenplay: Zhang Yuan, Tang Dalian, Cui Jian.
Director of photography: Zhang Jian.
Editor: Feng Shihai.
Music: Cui Jian, Dou Wei, We Yong.
Sound: Zhai Lixin, Zhen Youying, Wu Gang.
Cast: Cui Jian, Li Wei, Wu Gang, Bian Tianshuo, Tang Dalian, Bian Jing, Wen Li, Yu Feihong.
Production company: Beijing Zazhong Group (Shu Kei, Christopher Doyle, Cui Jian, Zhang Yuan), Flat F, 18/F, 272 Jaffe Road, Hong Kong, tel. +852-5-197729, fax +852-5-199206.
Foreign sales agent: Fortissimo Film Sales, Droogbak 4, NL-1013 Amsterdam, tel. +31-20-6273215, fax +31-20-6261255.
