Placeres desconocidos (Ren xiao yao), Jia Zhangke, China/Japan/South Korea/France, 2002, 112’

In the industrial city of Datong, China, two unemployed friends, Xiao Ji and Bin Bin, hang out smoking cigarettes and riding a motorcycle. The impulsive Xiao Ji will soon fall in love with Qiao Qiao, a dancer at King Mongol Liquors and the girlfriend of a local mobster; Bin Bin, pressured by his mother to join the army, sees how his girlfriend Yuan Yuan plans to go to study in the capital. In an increasingly changing world where only music seems to promise a better future, the two friends, unable to strengthen their romantic relationships and their place in the world, will make a drastic decision.