24 city

24 City is a documentary about the transformation of Factory 420 in Chengdu from the secret manufacture of military aircraft engines in 1958 to, after the Vietnam War, a downsized and remodeled facility producing consumer products, and then, more recently, into a privately owned real-estate development called “24 City”. The theme of his film—of all his features to date, in fact—is the displacement coming from historical upheavals in China and the various kinds of havoc they produce: physical, emotional, intellectual, political, conceptual, cultural, economic, familial, societal. And sometimes the style involves a certain amount of displacement as well, such as when he cuts from a speech in late 2007 about recent changes in 24 City before a full audience in an auditorium to a shot of an almost empty stairway that plays over the same speech, with one figure climbing the steps on two successive floors.
This film follows three generations of characters in Chengdu (in the 1950s, the 1970s and the present) as a state-owned factory gives way to a modern apartment complex. The film's narrative style is described by critics as a blend of fiction and documentary story-telling, and it consists of authentic interviews and fictive scenes delivered by actors (but presented in a documentary format).On rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 89% approval rating based on 44 reviews, with an average score of 7.4/10.