A classic romance always involves a certain formula: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Beijing Bicycle is a romance, except the love interest is a bicycle and not a girl.

Guei (Cui Lin) is a very poor but hard-working and determined delivery boy from the “country” area of present-day Beijing. The company that he works for loans its delivery boys first-rate bicycles. Guei is told that if he can earn 600 yuan, his company will transfer ownership of the bicycle to him. Guei toils daily to earn the 600 yuan. Finally, as he is just about to reach his goal, his bike is stolen when Guei leaves it for a moment to deliver a package. Devastated, Guei vows to find his beloved bicycle, and begins to search tirelessly for it throughout the entire city.

On the other side of town, Jian (Li Bin), a teenager about the same age as Guei, has a new bicycle which he adores. Jian claims to have purchased it at a flea market. Jian believes that his new bicycle allows him to fit in better with his peers, and that the status he now possesses as a result of owning the bicycle has earned him the affections of Xiao (Gao Yuanyuan).

Guei, meanwhile, continues his search for his bicycle. By persistence and amazing luck – given the millions of bicycles in Beijing – Guei stumbles upon the bicycle, hung on a bike rack in some obscure location in the city. He tries to take it back but is driven away by a guard. Still determined, Guei somehow is able to trace the bike to Jian. Guei then seizes the bike. Jian runs after him, and what ensues are a series of incidents in which Guei and Jian steal the bike back and forth from each other. In the process, Guei is subjected to continuous, and very graphic, physical abuse from Jian and his thuggish friends.

Eventually, after endless struggles to gain possession of the bicycle, Guei and Jian agree to share it. While this works well for a while, eventually Jian relinquishes his rights to the bicycle because he doesn’t need it to impress his girlfriend, whom he’s driven away by mistreating her. Although Guei has regained sole custody of the bicycle, his troubles are far from over. He and his beloeved bicycle will endure further physical trials caused by Jian’s reckless behavior. In the end, however, Guei perseveres. He and his bicycle may be a wreck, but they are together.

This movie was nominated for 5 of Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards (Best Film, Best Director, Best New Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing), and won a variety of other awards. The director, Wang Xiaoshuai, says he made the film because of the special meaning of the bicycle for Chinese people, which he calls a “symbol of China.” He said he also made the film to capture the jubilance of young people getting bicycles – and their heartbreak at loosing them.

To American audiences, Beijing Bicycle may seem like a lot of pointless fights and hand-wringing over a common and easily-replaceable object. To understand the deeper meaning of the bicycle, viewers need to understand that in China, ownership of a bicycle is (or at least was) a sign of prosperity and resourcefulness. Further, it is a key mode of transportation because cars and motorcycles are still relatively rare. For the characters in this movie, the ownership of the bicycle was equivalent to a first love. It filled their desires and needs, and it made them feel more mature and in control.

The problem with this movie is that the symbolism probably does not translate across cultures. American viewers, who are used to automobiles as the principal mode of transportation, are unlikely to feel the way that Jian or Guei feel for the bike – as something essential for survival or for social support. It is hard to stop asking, as the movie progresses, “Why all this fuss over a bike?” Because bicycles are not valued in our culture as they are in China, it is difficult for the audience to connect with Wang’s characters in the way that the director perhaps intended.

The two main characters in this movie did a very convincing job. The audience will feel empathy for Cui Lin’s character, because Cui is able to show him as hard-working and as a fundamentally good person. Li Bin was very believable as the immature, self-centered, and dishonest Jian.

Parents should know that there are numerous bloody fights that may scare younger kids. Characters smoke and pressure a character into trying a cigarette. Beijing Bicycle’s overall theme is perseverance over adversity. The most interesting aspect of this movie was the presentation of how the two main characters deal with the different obstacles placed in their path (theft, and constant physical and emotional abuse). Older teens will enjoy comparing the lifestyles of American and Chinese cultures to each other. They will also enjoy seeing how a common object can have a completely different meaning depending on the person who owns it.

Families should discuss why Guei and Jian cannot live without the bicycle. Kids should think about why these characters obsessions have put them in danger and caused them to do things they normally would not do. Why is it that Guei’s boss call him “the little engine that could”? Why does Jian believe the bicycle is rightfully his? Why does Guei believe the bicycle is rightfully his? Why does Jian give up the bicycle in the end? In American culture, what would be the equivalent of the bicycle to Guei and Jian? What similarities and differences are there in the way people live in Beijing and the way people in large cities live in the United States? Do Jian and Guei have anything in common other than their obsession with the bicycle?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “The Bicycle Thief,” the story of an Italian painter who searches for his stolen bike which is crucial for his family’s survival (in Italian with subtitles).

Fans of offbeat humor will get a big kick out of this follow-up to “Waiting for Guffman,” but there will be more appreciative, “Oh, that’s funny!” comments than outright laughs.

Director Christopher Guest has a repertory company of top-notch improvisational actors. He outlines the story to each of them and then pretty much lets them create their own characters and dialogue. This gives his movies a wonderful sense of depth, as it really seems that we are getting brief glimpses of real characters who are just as interesting when the camera isn’t on them. But it also means that the humor tends to come from small moments and from character rather than from jokes.

Guest appeared in the “mockumentary” “This is Spinal Tap,” on AFI’s recent list of the 100 funniest movies. He then wrote and directed “Waiting for Guffman,” a tribute to small-town theater (and boosterism). In his latest, he takes on people who participate in dog shows. While there are no moments in this movie that reach the inspired lunacy of “Spinal Tap’s” “It goes to 11” or “Guffman’s” “‘My Dinner with Andre'” action figures” and audition numbers, it is filled with great characters and memorable moments.

Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock play uptight lawyers with braces on their teeth who get everything from catalogues. They show a neurotic Weimaraner named Beatrice, who just hasn’t been the same since she saw them having sex in a position they selected from the Kama Sutra (in a manner of speaking, another catalogue purchase). Catherine O’Hara is a delight as Cookie Fleck, a woman with a ribald past married to a man with two left feet (literally). One of the movie’s best running jokes is that almost everyone Cookie meets rapturously recalls some past encounter with her. Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins play the most stable, happy, supportive, and romantic couple in the movie, the owners of an adorable Shih Tzu. Jennifer Coolidge is marvelous as the owner of the reigning champ and the trophy wife of a wealthy, aged man, a cross between Lady Macbeth and Anna Nicole Smith. And Jane Lynch is sensational as Cristy Cummings, the dog handler who handles more than the dog. Guest himself plays a Southern bait and tackle store owner with a bloodhound. And Fred Willard appears as the hopelessly untalented announcer.

Parents should know that the movie contains strong language, sexual references, same-sex kissing, and adultery. Most teens will not be too interested in the material.

Families who do see it should talk about why the awards are so important to the dog owners. Who sets up the standards for judging these dogs, and why? Talk about the way the different couples communicate and resolve differences with each other. Which ways are healthiest? Can you tell anything about a character by his or her choice of dog?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “This is Spinal Tap,” “Waiting for Guffman,” and “Party Girl.”

Plot: The Sycamore family, a group of loving and lovable eccentrics presided over by Grandpa (Lionel Barrymore), includes daughter Penny (Spring Byington), who writes lurid plays, her husband Paul (Samuel S. Hinds) who makes fireworks in the basement with Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), the iceman who came by to deliver ice nine years before and just stayed. Mr. Poppin (Donald Meek), who loves to make mechanical toys, has just joined them. The Sycamores have two daughters. Essie (Ann Miller) loves to dance, and her husband Ed (Dub Taylor) plays the xylophone. They sell candy to make a little money. The other daughter, Alice (Jean Arthur), is the only one in the family with a job. She works for a banking firm, and has fallen in love with the boss’ son, Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart).

A man from the IRS visits, to find out why Grandpa has never paid any taxes. The neighbors are all being evicted because the land is being sold to developers who intend to build a factory. And Tony’s very elegant and snobbish parents arrive for dinner on the wrong night, descending upon the Sycamore family just as Ed is arrested for enclosing seditious statements in the candy boxes and all the fireworks blow up. Various crises of finance and embarrassment and misunderstanding ensue, but all are straightened out, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Discussion: The well-loved play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart is given the Frank Capra treatment, sometimes called “capra-corn.” The entire populist sub-plot about the land being sold and the appearance of most of the characters in court are the additions of Capra and his screenwriter, Robert Riskin, and they make the film seem a bit dated. But children will enjoy the way that everyone in the family joyfully pursues his or her own dreams, and the way they all respect and support each other.

Discuss with children the way that some characters in the movie do not even seem to notice how eccentric they appear to others, while others notice and enjoy being different, and still others try desperately to appear “normal.” Children may have their own ideas about what “normal” means and whether it makes them feel entertained or uncomfortable to be around people who have a different idea of normality. All children feel embarrassed by their families at times, and it is worth paying attention to the way that Alice learns, with Tony’s help, that her family is not as unacceptable to the “normal” world as she feared.

Questions for Kids:

· Would you like to live in a family like this one?

· Which family member is most like you?

· Why did Tony tell his parents the wrong night for dinner at the Sycamore’s?

· Notice the difference between the way that the Sycamores and the Kirbys react when they get arrested. Why?

· What does the title mean?

Connections: This movie won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. Kaufman and Hart were the most successful playwrights of their day, and some of their other plays have been made into movies, too. “George Washington Slept Here,” with Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan, is a very funny story about a family that moves into a ramshackle house. “The Man Who Came to Dinner” is about a nightmare dinner guest who falls and breaks his hip and is stuck in the house long enough to cause complete disruption for everyone. Kaufman was co-author, with Edna Ferber, of “Stage Door,” about a group of young would-be actresses. It was made into a movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, and featuring Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, and Eve Arden. He was also the author of some of the Marx Brothers’ most popular movies.

Activities: Younger kids will enjoy Weird Parents by Audrey Wood, about a boy whose parents are even more outlandish than the Sycamores. Older kids can have fun getting a copy of the play and acting out some of their favorite scenes.