MovieChat Forums > Shijie (2005) Discussion > The ending

The ending

posted 18 years ago by chesternesterton
8 replies | jump to latest

I was wondering what you thought of the ending.

My own take was this: Because Xiao Tao told Taisheng that she would kill him if he were ever unfaithful to him, and shes finds out about his fling with Qun (who left for France), she decided to poison them both during the night at her friend's house. Then after the screen goes black, Taisheng asks her if it's all over and she says "No, it's just the beginning"...

I took this to mean that the whole cycle of rural migrants coming to Beijing would begin again, with new people arriving at the park and seeing their dreams shattered and resorting to the same kind of desperate measures, over and over. I don't know if it was supposed to be that bleak, but that's was just how I saw it...

[–] calecia13 18 years ago

Very interesting comment. I remember Taisheng saying something like...I want to become somebody (basically make big $). Of all the people who go to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, how many of them actually accomplish that?

Chesternesterton, do you have any other movie recommendations like this one. I prefer it to be on China. thanks.

[–] dustrabbit8888 18 years ago

Another good movie like "The world" would be "Beijing Bicycle"....

As for this movie's ending, I took it as they had not yet entered the Chinese concept of the afterlife. When Taisheng asks her "Are we dead?", Tao replies in Mandarin, "Mei you" ("No."...but it can also be trnaslated as "not yet" whch could mean they are heading for death but have not yet arrived...).

[–] Lupab 17 years ago

I'm not sure whether it's simply an accident or a murder and suicide. The movie just doesn't bother to tell it clearly. But I tend to believe the former because, though Xiao Tao is disillusioned with the love between TaiSheng and her, she is prepared to accept and stand the following dismal marriage and the life as she says 'It's just the beginning.'

[–] rschmeec 16 years ago

In the first band-aid scene, Tao, when it is suggested that she will awaken the dead, forcefully replies that she will kill them all. In the middle of the movie she tells her boy friend that if he is ever unfaithful, she will kill him. These seem clearly to foreshadow the final scene.

I, too, am puzzled about the "this is the beginning" that is tacked on.

[–] tlay 16 years ago

I'm still working it around in my head, but one thing I'm wondering is if Jia is thinking about the ending to another allegorical movie about a society undergoing the ruthless rise of capitalism--Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, which ends with Maria Braun blowing herself up with gas just at the moment of one of the new Germany's first big national triumphs - victory in the 1954 World Cup. The crucial difference of course is between a bang and a whimper. Any thoughts? What makes a whimper appropriate here?

Tom

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