The World (Chinese: 世界; pinyin: Shìjiè) is a 2004 Chinese film written and directed by Jia Zhangke, starring Zhao Tao and Cheng Taishen. It was his first film shot outside his hometown of Shanxi Province, and also the first of his works to be granted official production approval by the Chinese government.
The film blends documentary-style cinematography with animation and electronic music. Scholar David Richler notes that Jia Zhangke departs from his usual observational realism in The World, incorporating computer animation and digital effects, to express emotional dislocation and imagined mobility.
The inspiration for The World came from a 2003 conversation between Jia and Zhao Tao, in which she recounted her experience working as a dancer at Shenzhen's "Window of the World", a theme park filled with miniature versions of international landmarks. This inspired Jia to explore the gap between fantasy and reality for China's urban underclass and the symbolic role of such theme parks in shaping the spectacle of globalization. However, the film was ultimately set in Beijing World Park, a similar attraction on the outskirts of the capital.
The film is set in early 21st-century China, during a time of accelerated integration into the social transformation of globalization. It follows a group of young rural migrants, including performers and security guards working at World Park, and some construction workers employed elsewhere in the city. The migrant's lives are swept up in the spectacle of modernization and global consumer culture, and their personal dreams frequently clash with structural realities. Despite a glamorous surface built for tourist consumption, their jobs are low-paid, repetitive, and precarious, trapping them in cycles of emotional isolation, unstable employment, and social marginalization. Through the spatial logic and symbolic function of the theme park, Zhangke presents a lived condition in which the promise of freely traversing The World masks a reality of constrained mobility.
The World premiered in competition at the 61st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2004, and received critical acclaim for its portrayal of structural limitations and class immobility in contemporary Chinese urban life.
