# The World (世界) (2004 film)
**The World** (世界; also romanized *Shijie* or *Shi jie*) is a 2004 Chinese drama film written and directed by [Jia Zhangke](https://www.edgepedia.org/jia-zhangke), set among the migrant workers of Beijing World Park, a theme park of miniature replicas of world landmarks on the outskirts of Beijing. It was Jia's fourth feature and his first made with official Chinese government approval and released in China, after a decade of underground filmmaking.[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/) • [2](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/12064/the-world)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / year | Jia Zhangke, 2004; his fourth feature, after *Xiao Wu* (1997), *Platform* (2000), and *Unknown Pleasures* (2002)[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/) • [3](https://radii.co/article/the-world) |
| Production | China, France, Japan; Mandarin language; 35mm; cinematography by Yu Lik-wai[4](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world) |
| Setting | Beijing World Park, where visitors can "see the world without ever leaving Beijing" among replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Manhattan, Big Ben, and the pyramids[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/) • [4](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world) |
| Principal cast | Zhao Tao as the dancer Tao; Cheng Taishen as the security guard Taisheng; Alla Shcherbakova as the Russian worker Anna[5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-world) |
| Runtime | Reported as 140 minutes by the New York Film Festival, 136 minutes by the Rotterdam festival, and 133 minutes by the Melbourne festival[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/) • [4](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world) • [2](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/12064/the-world) |
| Festival history | Selected for the competition of the 61st Venice Film Festival in September 2004, the only mainland Chinese film in competition that year[6](https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2004-07-31/07263252123s.shtml) |
| Critical reception | Metascore of 81 from 23 reviews, classified as "universal acclaim" (20 positive, 3 mixed, 0 negative)[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-world/critic-reviews/) |
## Spoilers
### Story and setting
The film takes place in Beijing World Park, a real theme park whose replicas of the [Eiffel Tower](https://www.edgepedia.org/eiffel-tower), the [Arc de Triomphe](https://www.edgepedia.org/arc-de-triomphe), the [Taj Mahal](https://www.edgepedia.org/taj-mahal), the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and other landmarks stand within sight of one another and are connected by a monorail and train line. A loudspeaker announcement promises that visitors can "see the world without ever leaving Beijing."[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/) • [8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1534641/the-world-2004)
The central characters are young migrants from rural provinces. Tao (Zhao Tao) performs daily in the park's stage shows, dressed in the costumes of the nationalities the park represents, from Spanish and African dances to ethnic costume in front of the Taj Mahal. Her boyfriend Taisheng (Cheng Taishen) is one of the park's security guards. Their relationship frays as Taisheng is drawn to Qun, a fashion designer from Wenzhou, while Tao shares wordless scenes of mutual empathy with Anna, an imported Russian coworker with whom she has no common language.[4](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world) • [9](https://mubi.com/en/films/the-world/critics-reviews) Around them, other migrant workers arrive in Beijing looking for relatives and work, and the park's staff form a sealed-off community of performers and patrollers.[10](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature-articles/jia_zhangke/)
Passports and cell phones anchor the characters' hopes of escape. In the film, the migrant workers aspire to international travel, but only a few succeed and at great cost: Qun is finally issued a visa to France after years of waiting and separation from her husband, and Tao's former boyfriend Liangzi secures a passport and visa for work in Mongolia.[11](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-7458.2009.01007.x) The park's replica of the World Trade Center remains standing in the film's world; a worker proudly explains to a friend that the towers "were bombed on September 11, 2001, but we still have them."[8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1534641/the-world-2004)
## Production and official approval
Jia conceived the story around 2000, just after finishing his second feature *Platform*. He had lived in Beijing for nearly a decade while making films only about his hometown region in Shanxi, and wanted to make a film reflecting his impressions of urban life. The project evolved so that the city became generic, "a large and ancient city" with many artificial landscapes, and the focus settled on the park's dancers and security guards and the migrants who move among them.[10](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature-articles/jia_zhangke/)
In January 2004 the Chinese authorities restored Jia's credentials as a director, allowing him to remove what he called the "underground hat." *The World* became his first film made through official channels, released under the auspices of the state-run Shanghai Film Studio, and his first released in China.[3](https://radii.co/article/the-world) • [10](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature-articles/jia_zhangke/) • [2](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/12064/the-world) It was partially shot at the actual Beijing World Park and at the Windows of the World park in Shenzhen.[11](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-7458.2009.01007.x) In a 2004 interview, Jia explained the title in two ways: the story combined two real accounts told to him by his leads Zhao Tao and Cheng Taishen, and it expressed his own feeling, as he gained experience, that he understood the world less and less.[12](https://ent.sina.com.cn/2004-01-16/0225279448.html)
The film was selected in July 2004 for the competition of the 61st [Venice Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/venice-film-festival), the only mainland Chinese entry among the 21 competing films.[6](https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2004-07-31/07263252123s.shtml)
## Style
Jia uses the park's artificial geography for sweeping camera moves, panning from the [Leaning Tower of Pisa](https://www.edgepedia.org/leaning-tower-of-pisa) to [London Bridge](https://www.edgepedia.org/london-bridge) in a single shot, and includes Bollywood-style musical numbers alongside the park's touristy glitter shows.[1](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/) Between scenes he inserts brief animations in manga style, often visualizing the text messages characters exchange on their cell phones and turning fantastical, a device that renders the mental life behind mediated communication.[4](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world) • [8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1534641/the-world-2004) Critics have connected the film's tone to documentary-influenced realism rather than the alienated eeriness of Antonioni's landscapes, and noted the ambient surveillance of the guards and the constant loudspeaker announcements as markers of authority pressing on the characters' inner lives.[8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1534641/the-world-2004) • [13](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-world)
## Themes and critical reading
Scholarship has read the park as an allegory of globalization. Arianne Gaetano, an anthropologist then at [Lund University](https://www.edgepedia.org/lund-university)'s Center for East and Southeast Asian Studies, argues that the film's representational space is a facade masking the social inequalities of globalization, including alienated and commoditized forms of labor and sexed bodies, and that it illuminates the disjuncture between transnational imaginaries and the local material conditions of China's internal migrants, especially young rural women.[11](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-7458.2009.01007.x) Tonglin Lu of the University of Montreal, writing in the *Journal of Chinese Cinemas*, places the film in the context of localized migrant workers within intensified globalization, reading it through [Giorgio Agamben](https://www.edgepedia.org/giorgio-agamben)'s concepts of dispositif and profanation.[14](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/jcc.2.3.163_1) The Rotterdam festival's synopsis summarizes the film's social portrait: globalization, consumerism, and rapid communication make the characters' lives light yet also superficial, isolated, and disjointed.[4](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world)
## Reception
On Metacritic the film holds a score of 81 from 23 critics, with 20 positive reviews, 3 mixed, and none negative.[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-world/critic-reviews/) David Sterritt of *The Christian Science Monitor* called it "a brilliant, if challenging, film" and gave it 100.[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-world/critic-reviews/) Desson Thomson of *The Washington Post* described "the visual expanse of a John Ford western and the ensemble grandeur and long takes of a Robert Altman picture," while Jonathan Rosenbaum in the *Chicago Reader* called the title "an ironic pun and a metaphor" for a film that is "hilarious and upsetting, epic and dystopian."[7](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-world/critic-reviews/) Dennis Lim of *The Village Voice*, ranking it Jia's fourth-best film on a repeat viewing, argued that its muffled emotional impact should be understood as a function of its setting.[15](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423176/criticreviews/) Rosenbaum later wrote that the film suggests "at different moments a backstage musical, a failed love story, a surreal comedy, and even a cartoon fantasy."
## References
1. [NYFF '04: The World, Film at Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/nyff-04-the-world/)
2. [The World, MIFF Festival Archive (2005)](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/12064/the-world)
3. [Capturing The Ennui of Escapism with Jia Zhangke's "The World", RADII (2021)](https://radii.co/article/the-world)
4. [The World (Shi jie), International Film Festival Rotterdam 2005](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2005/films/the-world)
5. [The World (2004), JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-world)
6. [贾樟柯新片《世界》正式赴威尼斯电影节参赛, 新华网 via Sina (2004)](https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2004-07-31/07263252123s.shtml)
7. [The World critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-world/critic-reviews/)
8. [The World (2004), Turner Classic Movies (2019)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1534641/the-world-2004)
9. [The World critics reviews, MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/films/the-world/critics-reviews)
10. [An Interview with Jia Zhangke, Senses of Cinema (2004)](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature-articles/jia_zhangke/)
11. [Arianne Gaetano (2009). Rural Woman and Modernity in Globalizing China: Seeing Jia Zhangke's The World. Visual Anthropology Review 25(1).](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-7458.2009.01007.x)
12. ["地下导演"贾樟柯：我一直想摆脱神秘, Sina Entertainment (2004)](https://ent.sina.com.cn/2004-01-16/0225279448.html)
13. [Watch "The World" | The Front Row, The New Yorker (2012)](https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-world)
14. [Tonglin Lu (2008). Fantasy and reality of a virtual China in Jia Zhangke's film The World. Journal of Chinese Cinemas 2(3).](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/jcc.2.3.163_1)
15. [The World (2004) Metacritic reviews, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423176/criticreviews/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Romantic drama films 2000s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license