Wasted Orient - A Film About Joyside

Most helpful review Wasted Orient - A Film About Joyside

• Great insight into modern China

   

  By kiwihirsuta (4 reviews) from London , 12 Feb 2008

  [Highly rated reviewer]

  This documentary about a Beijing punk band's first national tour makes a fascinating travelogue, and provides a view into an emerging China that isn't presented to us by Michael Palin or Russel Brand... thank God. The band are no good - and that makes them a good punk band. They drink nonstop, but unlike, say the Sex Pistols, they are a lot less angry, and a lot more angst-ridden than their Western counterparts. The band members are suprisingly self aware - 'Rock and Roll is boring. Chinese Rock and Roll is the same as Western Rcok and Roll'. They know they aren't doing any thing new, but they're going to do it anyway... and a growing number of kids are happy that they are. This isnt great film making - neither rough enough to be charming, or polished enough to be mesemerising, but the subject is fascinating, the people honest, and its an insight into the new cultural revolution. In my opinion China is going to be the most important country in the world in the coming years: politically and culturally. There are countless rural riots unreported in the media, the current growth and industrialistion is sure to hit a ceiling, and a new found sense of individualism and demands for human rights could prove to be an earthquake that shakes the world. Music is just one of the ways that the current regime will come to loose its grip on the population. The importance of punk and other cultural trends in China may prove to be revolutionary, and it would be a hilarious joke of history if the slackers of Joyside are a part of that.

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