The human dimension of the sweeping reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping since the late 1970s and the struggles imposed upon the country's huge marginalized population, especially on the rural and migrant working classes, are a central theme of Jia Zhangke's films. Working as an independent filmmaker within the constraints of government funding and the commercial demands of the Chinese market, Jia makes this critique poignantly and ironically through popular music. In Jia's hands, popular music turns into a political investigation and expression of the changing political economy of love, carefully yet boldly challenging mainstream ideologies and practices currently reinventing notions of Chinese identity, history and progress.
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