Young People and Their Youth of China 2023
Sinopsis
cast
- Zhang Yixing. Xu Mai.
- Wang Yibo. Lu Yang.
- Zhou Dongyu. Zhou Xiaoyu.
- Yu Haoming. Xu Muzhi.
- Xing Fei. Wang Xiaoshuang.
- Aaron Deng. Guo Zhijun.
- Monica Mok Siu-Kei. Doctor Li
review
Charlie Chaplin’s frantic production-line factory worker in Modern Times is a ghostly presence in this giant, immersive documentary from Chinese director Wang Bing, the movie equivalent of a wall-sized tapestry; it is about the sweatshop capital of China, the northern town of Zhili in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, known as the “city of children’s clothing”. Thousands of workshops turn out mountains of cheap garments and every year vast numbers of young people from about 16 to 22 come from outlying cities to do a season of brutally hard work in return for cash in hand.
This is China’s hop picking or kibbutzim, the young workers often staying in the grim dorms the bosses offer rent free to justify low pay. There are bricks of cash to be seen in this film, no question of internet bank transfers and perhaps the whole thing happens without the involvement of the tax collector.
