Interesting to discover director Jai Zhangke not in a Chinese film festival, but in the "Le French May" program. Sharing my time between him and Alain Delon, I ended up watching only two of his movies shown in this series, his latest "Shijie" (2004) and earliest "Xiao Wu" (1997), in that order. I'll catch "Zhantai" (Platform) (2000) and "Ren Xiao Yao" (Unknown Pleasure) (2002) on some other occasions.I agree with some of the views expressed in IMDb that Shijie has become somewhat commercialized, losing some of the rough innocence of the earlier three, which could be collectively referred to as the Fengyang trilogy, Fengyang being director Jia's hometown.With a perpetual expression of "I don't give a damn" written on his face, Xiao Wu is a loser personified. Hidden behind this mask of force field (apologies for a really inappropriately borrowed term but I'm just too caught up with the second coming of the Force) is the young man's insecurity, frustration and alienation.Xiao Wu makes a big deal out of not being invited to a ex-fellow-pickpocket-buddy's wedding because he can't understand why somebody no better than he can all of a sudden become a role model of a successful entrepreneur. He spends fifty yuans on a karaoke girl and insists on getting full value, not for sex, but just for her time to accompany him all over town. Actually he ends up accompanying her to her hairdresser. Her sickness provides an opportunity to bring out the hidden kindness in Xian Wu and, for a moment, what looks like a tender romance seems promising, until she goes away, unannounced, with a rich man from Shanxi. Later we also get to see his complete alienation with his family.The last scene, the petty thief picked up by the impersonal but reasonable authority, appears on the surface to be quite inconsequential but is deep down most heart-breakingly tragic.

USA's AZN TV purchased the rights to this film and the network is showing it using the English title THE PICKPOCKET.1997's THE PICKPOCKET takes amateur home-movie style movie making to amazing levels of unpleasantness. The movie depicts a long-winded series of boring wanderings of an uninteresting, confused guy. This lead character, Xiao Wu, does not simply walk about aimlessly. Viewers will unfortunately soon realize that Xiao Wu has an unsurpassed talent to seek out, and remain dormant near the most obnoxious noises to be found in China. Clanging empty tin buckets being beaten with a stick -- he is there. Every old motor in China clunking in agony -- he is there. A crying baby? Yes, you guessed it, he is there! According to THE PICKPOCKET, China is the most irritating unpleasant sounding place on planet Earth.The only element worse than the sound of THE PICKPOCKET is the photography. The camera shakes, shakes and shakes some more. Finally, the camera stills, but then it falls to the actor's knees and just stays there until someone in the crew realizes the mistake and begins to shake the camera again. Most of the shaky film is framed in distant, long, long, long shots. The few times when the camera gets somewhat close, nothing compelling ever takes place to connect the viewer with what is happening.The photography is murky, faded and often blurry. The use of color is -- well, there is no sign of intelligence controlling the use of color. Most every shot is held 20 times too long. Few movies are so painful to sit through. This film is painful to watch, and painful to hear. And then it simply ends.John Woo fans might enjoy being able to hear part of the soundtrack to DIE XUE SHUANG XIONG (THE KILLER) as the lead character is hanging outside of a video store for many minutes. Anyway, be warned -- THE PICKPOCKET will steal away your good time.

I have seen the movie,but the quality of videotape is very bad,and cause the conversation is shangxi(a north province in china),so thought i am a chinese,i can't hardly hear it clearly.speak generelly,this movie reflect ture life condition in small town of china.many of people in town like xiaowu liang had been influenced deep by pop culture from Hongkong or China itself.and xiaowu is a poor low class in China.we are laughing when the movie play,but we are also shocked after the movie over.

This no budget film is shot with a hand held camera. It shows, but this does not affect the quality of the film. The director has made an intense movie about, Chinese street life. However the culture in China is very different from the west, we can see that the problems of little Wu are universal.