Cinema
Xiao Wu
小武
Jia Zhangke · 1997
Synopsis
In Fenyang, a small town in Shanxi, in 1997, in the middle of a campaign against crime, Xiao Wu makes his living as a pickpocket on buses. His former accomplice, Xiaoyong, now a prominent figure in the cigarette and karaoke trade, gets married without inviting him. Xiao Wu courts Meimei, a karaoke hostess, who asks him to buy a pager; he buys her a ring, but she leaves with a richer man. He gives the ring to his mother, and a quarrel with his father drives him out of the house.
Context
It is Jia Zhangke's first feature film, shot in 16 mm in his home town, for four hundred thousand yuan, with money from a Hong Kong company; he began it three months before the end of his studies. Most of the actors are inhabitants of Fenyang, who speak their dialect; Wang Hongwei, who plays Xiao Wu, was then studying screenwriting in Beijing. Shown at the Forum of the Berlin festival on 18 February 1998, it did not obtain a visa in China, where it was shown only at clandestine screenings, according to the 1999 interview published by Ca' Foscari University.
Who it is for
A film of one hour fifty minutes, in Shanxi dialect; known in France under the title Xiao Wu, artisan pickpocket.
Prizes and reception
It received at Berlin in 1998 the Wolfgang Staudte Prize and that of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.