I'm somewhat removed from Chinese popular culture, and from popular culture in general. But I was intrigued by this movie. Partly because the critics' voices were so boisterous, their farts so loud, that I can't help but feel that I need to find out what the stink is all about. Well, I watched the movie and thought that it was not bad.
From the vantage point of a viewer living in a society of abundance, the movie doesn't seem extraordinary. The shots are glossy, but nobody would mistake the set for the level of luxury that one would find in places without so much fanfare in the U.S.
But there is a very simple premise from the movie: Chinese people want what everybody else want, mainly love and money. Is this too much to ask? Would it be so out of place to suggest that the pursue of wealth and prosperity should be the governing mission of mankind?
I find that this normality, this baseline familiarity, may itself be significant. I once thought to myself that the day when movies coming out of China are no longer considered exotic or 'auteur', only then would China truly have arrived in the international stage in a more significant sense, because it would then have arrived culturally. I think those days may be starting.
This movie is in many ways limited, but I think it would be a mistake to wait for a more grant debut to realize what is happening. Ultimately, to have Chinese culture walk out of the alley of history and speak more about the universal present, to have an entirely different society with the critical mass to ponder the expanding possibilities of reality: that would be exciting. That would be electrifying.
The movie will be remembered as a signifier of the continuing normalization of China. I am happy to see such signs, because what Chinese culture has come to mean to me is the continued improvement and actualization of a people. It has, in some ways, come to meant progress itself.
