The film takes place in the provincial Chinese town Datong and follows the lives of three young adults, aimlessly wandering its rubble-littered and crime-infested streets, working odd jobs, watching TV and trying to make ends meet. Bin Bin (Zhao Weiwei) is a nineteen-year-old who has recently been laid off, Xiao Ji (Wu Qiong) is his reckless best friend and Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao) is a singer and dancer, performing at promotional events for a liquor company and earning money on the side as a sex worker. She is also the object of Xiao Ji's affection, who is immediately smitten with the beautiful woman. However, when he makes a pass at her, he runs into trouble with Qiao Qiao's boyfriend, Qiao San (Li Zhubin), a local gangster and also her pimp, who assaults and humiliates him. Frustrated by their lot in life and inspired by the Western media they consume, Bin Bin and Xiao Ji eventually decide to turn to crime themselves.
“Unknown Pleasures”‘s plot is sparse as Jia is less interested in traditional narrative and more interested in evoking the intense ennui his characters face as they navigate a China in transition. Western brands and pop culture have bled into the everyday of the industrial town, as have numerous nightclubs playing loud dance music. This new culture has become an escapist outlet for the directionless youth of the People's Republic, as uninterested in the Maoist past as they are in the free-market future. The world of politics invades their view often, such as when there are reports of American planes entering Chinese airspace. On another occasion, Bin Bin, upon hearing an explosion, nonchalantly asks if they're being bombed by the U.S. Anxieties and vague hopes surround them yet they remain detached, unmoved by the threat of bombing campaigns or by the announcement that the 2008 Olympic Games will be held in Beijing, an announcement which draws cheers from a crowd gathered around a television set as Bin Bin and Xiao Ji stare blankly at the screen, lost in a sea of smiling faces.
Jia perfectly captures not only the apathy but also the alienation which rapid globalization brought with it. Aided by digital video, he achieves an almost documentary-level realism that grounds the devastation of the characters' environment but also elicits the encroaching atomization of the internet age, an era which saw economic individualism rise as China joined the World Trade Organization. Suddenly confronted with this new reality, Jia's characters recede into comforting escapism but in the process, adopt the very same weary languor as their Western counterparts, who have been on a steady diet of pop media, ads and hard-nosed individuality for even longer and have not found a way to meaningfully break, free from the cultural dead-end they face.
The DV cinematography, courtesy of frequent Jia collaborator Yu Lik-wai, is an unobtrusive presence throughout, calmly capturing the crushing mundanity of life in an increasingly westernized China, where economic insecurity and a lack of prospects trap its young people in a cycle of poverty and isolation with consumerism seemingly the only thing to offer a break from the depressing humdrum of their day-to-day. It's a malaise that's captured with uncanny precision not only by the camera but also by the subtle, naturalistic performances. Zhao Tao shines especially as Qiao Qiao, a young woman caught in particularly difficult circumstances but too worn down and powerless to find her way out. Zhao is magnetic in the role and the profound, complicated sadness she brings to the character is mesmerizing to watch.
“Unknown Pleasures” is a meandering but moving story of life at the end of history. The promised future never came and all that's left is a yearning for pleasures that may forever remain unknown.
