Film

24 City

Name: 24 City
Genre: Drama
Released: 2008
Cast: Joan Chen, Lü Liping, Zhao Tao, Chen Jianbin

Social drama
Slow-burning

Jia Zhangke's hybrid essay-film observes the demolition of a historic Chengdu munitions factory and its replacement with a luxury complex. Through interviews with workers, families, and officials, it becomes a meditation on Chinese modernisation's human cost: progress eating its own past. Formally inventive and quietly devastating.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to films that build a portrait of a city and its workers out of overheard memories, where the line between testimony and performance keeps you leaning in.

Skip it if you need plot momentum, since it moves slowly and much of it is people reflecting on their lives in an unhurried way that can feel static.

What it asks of you: Patience for long stretches of quiet faces and unhurried testimony, across a little under two hours, with the emotional weight arriving gradually rather than all at once.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Still Life2006

Jia Zhangke's masterpiece about the Three Gorges Dam's human displacement. Like 24 City, it transforms industrial upheaval into poetry—observing ordinary people navigating extraordinary loss with bewildering grace.

But Shot in long, static takes that demand patience. If you want catharsis or plot momentum, you'll leave frustrated.

Mountains May Depart2015

Jia Zhangke again, this time tracking a woman's life across decades of Chinese transformation. It shares 24 City's elegiac tone and its refusal to judge the choices people make under historical pressure.

But Structurally unusual and emotionally restrained. The film withholds easy answers about whether progress was worth the cost.

A Touch of Sin2013

Jia's only film that feels angry. Four stories of violence erupting in modern China's prosperity gap. It shares the formal intelligence of 24 City but trades patience for urgency and rage.

But Contains graphic violence. Some sequences are genuinely difficult to watch, which is entirely the point.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from 24 City

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sunset Boulevard1950

Both mourn a world being demolished. But where 24 City grieves collectively, Sunset Boulevard grieves the individual ego's death—a completely different register of loss.

Wilder's noir about a silent-film star clinging to obsolescence in postwar Hollywood. Like 24 City, it's fascinated by how people sustain themselves when their world becomes uninhabitable, when progress means irrelevance.

But Its sensationalism and artifice are the opposite of 24 City's restraint. It's Gothic where 24 City is austere.

The Farewell2019

A family navigates modernisation and tradition as an elderly matriarch faces terminal illness. Like 24 City, it finds quiet profundity in how people endure change, balancing humour with unbearable tenderness.

But Its emotional registers may feel scattered if you're expecting consistent tonal commitment.

Platform2001

Jia's breakthrough: a decade-spanning portrait of a travelling theatre troupe as China transforms around them. It's his most narrative film, but shares 24 City's obsession with how history happens to ordinary people.

But Nearly three hours. The pacing is deliberate to the point of severity; modern viewers often find it slow.

Long Day's Journey Into Night2018

Taiwanese director Liao Ming-ming's portrait of lost love and urban decay. Like 24 City, it uses architecture and memory as emotional anchors, finding beauty in what's being erased.

But Experimental structure and dream logic. If you need clarity, this will frustrate you.

Ash Is Purest White2018

Jia Zhangke's most recent film follows a woman's resilience across post-industrial China. It combines 24 City's documentary impulse with genuine narrative momentum and romantic yearning.

But The middle section drags noticeably. Some viewers find the tonal shift jarring.

Bicycle Thieves1948

The ancestor of films like 24 City. Italian neorealism finds tragedy in ordinary economic struggle. A father's desperation after his bicycle is stolen becomes a portrait of systemic indifference.

But Shot in grainy black-and-white with non-professional actors. Its simplicity can feel distant if you need spectacle.

The Third Generation1979

Fassbinder's acidic comedy-drama about a terrorist cell in post-industrial Germany. Like 24 City, it questions whether revolutionary gesture means anything when the system absorbs all resistance.

But Deliberately ugly and chaotic. Fassbinder wants you uncomfortable, and the film makes no concessions to clarity.

Hornblower: The Examination for Lieutenant1998

Both use formal experimentation to ask: how do ordinary people survive systems that don't care about them? Both treat the archive itself as a character.

A documentary-performance piece where filmmaker Zheng Jiake records himself preparing for a university entrance exam, spliced with archival footage of a real candidate. It shares 24 City's formal hybridity and its interest in how individual lives get inscribed by state machinery.

But Visually and structurally demanding. You need to actively parse what you're watching; the film refuses clarity.