The World
Zeitgeist Films | Release Date: July 1, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
This is a brilliant, if challenging, film. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A film of wonderful looseness and innovation. Set free to film fakes, the director is the real thing. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
With rich irony, The World juxtaposes the teasing, grand images of the outside world's wonders with the insular community and the mundane lives of the park employees. Read full review
100
Washington PostDesson Thomson
A movie with the visual expanse of a John Ford western and the ensemble grandeur and long takes of a Robert Altman picture. The movie is definitely Chinese in content, but it exudes American style and spirit. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The title of Jia Zhang-ke's 2004 masterpiece, The World -- a film that's hilarious and upsetting, epic and dystopian -- is an ironic pun and a metaphor. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen Johnson
A heartbreaking, beautiful movie that gains strength from its deep characterizations. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
The comic, tragic and monumentally beautiful new film by writer-director Jia Zhangke (Platform). Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
A remarkable film. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
It's a magnificent film – thoughtful but not distant, aesthetically and technically sophisticated but staged with restraint and delicacy. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The director is becoming a master of blending the political and the personal with eloquence and deceptive lightness. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Jia's compassion for the drifting souls struggling to create a life for themselves in such a transitory existence makes the metaphor resonant. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
If a movie can be stark and rapturous at the same time, this is that movie. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterAndrew Sun
It's a splendid microcosm of contemporary China's aspirations and shortcomings. Read full review
80
Village VoiceDennis Lim
On a first viewing, the movie seemed a dilution of the formal strategies Jia had perfected-at once less dispassionate and less empathetic. After a repeat viewing, it still strikes me as Jia's fourth-best film (that it's one of the year's best says plenty about the level at which he's working), but it's more apparent that The Worl d's muffled emotional impact should be understood as a function of its setting. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Maverick Chinese director Jia Zhangke examines the rapidly changing face of China as its economy edges further toward a modified form of market capitalism with yet another complex, multicharacter masterpiece. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is long and slow. Either you will fall into its rhythm, or you will grow restless. Read full review
70
VarietyDavid Rooney
While the film feels overlong at two hours 20 minutes, there's a seductive stillness to its enveloping mood. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Loosely constructed, The World drifts along pleasantly for much of its two-and-a-half-hour running time. Mr. Jia has a terrific eye and an almost sculptural sense of film space (especially in close quarters), and he brings texture and density to even the most nondescript rooms. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It's a fine film, full of small epiphanies.
63
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Jia's message is that globalization has failed to help the Chinese masses. We hear you, dude, but did you really need 143 minutes to get your point across? Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
The World's dull weave of frustrated romances and worker exploitation is far too obvious, and Jia can only relieve the tedium so many times. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The World has a pokey pace, but it presents a uniquely powerful look at the new big kid in the global economy. Read full review
50
Film ThreatStina Chyn
One of the oddest and surely the longest cinematic experiences you may ever encounter. Read full review
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