chinesh director Jia Zhangke’s bulky

chinesh director Jia Zhangke’s bulky three-act melodrama (appearing in cinemas a full two and a half years after its festival debut in Cannes) is an intriguing, imperfect beast. Beginning on the eve of the millennium, and opening with an exuberant dance sequence set to Go West by Pet Shop Boys, the film moves through three time periods as lived by a trio of childhood friends in China. There is Tao (Zhao Tao), an easy-going rainbow-cardiganed presence, strong, silent coal miner Liangzi (Liang Jin Dong), and bratty posh boy Zhang Jinsheng (Zhang Yi). Against a backdrop of homemade steamed dumplings, Cantonese pop songs and smoky clubs blaring rave music, a love triangle unfolds.

The second chapter skips ahead 14 years and sees Tao as a single mother, Jinsheng with a new wife, and Liangzi’s lungs failing him; the third is set in 2025 and focuses on Tao’s now college-aged son Dollar (Dong Zijian), who lives in Australia and is estranged from his mother. The time periods (accompanied by three changing aspect ratios) allow Zhangke to look at the specific emotional and sociological repercussions of China’s changing economic landscape, but the film’s sections aren’t equally weighted, with the final “future” chapter floating free of the rest of the narrative.