The World (2004) poster
2004 · drama

The World

Directed by Jia Zhangke2h 20m2004
ElsewhereIMDb7.14kRT74%Metacritic81TMDB7.076
  • sombre
  • slow-burn
Movie DNA

Sombre, slow-burn, measured drama, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

Our read · The World (2004) reads as a sombre, slow-burn, grounded drama entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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Availability in the US · via JustWatch

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The shape of The World

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want slow, observational Chinese drama about lives inside a surreal theme-park world.

ends bittersweetit stays with youmeditativegrips by minute 35attention 4/5feels its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if long static shots, minimal plot, or full Chinese subtitles will exhaust you.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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