It’s hard to be a rebellious punk rock teen in the U.S. in 2013. When even suburban fourth graders have mohawks (courtesy of lame moms and dads who want everyone to say, “Man that kid must have cool parents”), you know a subculture has been tamed. But being a punk in Communist China, well that Punk Rock!
As the rest of the world was tuned into the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Australian filmmaker Shaun Jefford decided to focus on a very small, but hardcore group of punks and as they went about life in a city that was highly suspicious of their music and lifestyle. Jefford takes his cameras into tiny, out of the way clubs and cramped apartments to profile a small collective of young adults who love everything about punk rock (complete with suspenders, Docs and still taboo in China tattoos).
Jefford’s ability to get his subjects to open up is especially impressive given the amount of suspicion these kids illicit from just about everyone they encounter. Beijing Punk is proof that the 70’s ethos that the genre created is still alive and well… at least in China.
Beijing Punk DVD / 1 DVD / 73 min. / Seminal Films / 2012
Beijing Punk DVD Review
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