Though human-pulled rickshaws were invented in Japan at the end of the 19th century and were still operating in many Asian cities until the 1950s, they have come to symbolize the degradation that peasants suffered in early 20th century China. Pulling rickshaws was often the only work available to those coming to the cities for the first time and many had to work 17 or 18 hours a day regardless of the weather just to eke out a living. Just released on DVD in the Celebration of Chinese Cinema series, Rickshaw Boy tells the story of Xiangzi, a young peasant from the countryside who works as a rickshaw puller in Beijing in the 1920s, trying to save enough money to buy his own vehicle. The first film from Communist China to open in an American theater, Rickshaw Boy is not just a story about rickshaw pullers, but about the ugliness of a city run by dueling warlords where many of the poor turned against each other for survival. While at times overly melodramatic, the film transcends its "socialist realism" limitations to become a deeply involving portrait of the optimism and courage of the common people in old China. .

In the film, Xiangzi (Zhang Fengyi) struggles to establish a business but is seduced by the owner of the Rickshaw Company's daughter, the crafty and manipulative but good-hearted Hunui, brilliantly performed by Siqin Gaowa. Despite a ten-year difference in age, she tires to lure him to the altar but he runs away to work as a rickshaw puller for a scholar, Mr Cao (Li Tang). Huniu tracks him down and tries to trick him into marrying her by pretending to be pregnant. Xiangzi agrees to be married, believing her to be pregnant and resumes his quest to buy his own vehicle until battered by repeated tragedies. Desperate conditions of life in pre-Revolutionary China are shown in the growing relationship between Xiangzi and Xiao Fuzi (Yin Xin), a young woman who is forced into prostitution to earn money to buy food to keep her young brothers alive.

Directed by Ling Zefing, a member of China's Third Generation (1949-78) of filmmakers, Rickshaw Boy is based on the 1936 novel Camel Xiangzi by proletarian author and playwright Lao She, one of the first novels about a laborer in modern Chinese literature. The impact of Lao She (who sadly committed suicide after being persecuted during the Cultural Revolution) and Xiangzi are still felt today. According to an article in China Pictorial magazine by Pang Liping, in recent years it has become common to see rickshaw boys dressed in traditional clothes worn by rickshaw boys of the past, waiting for customers on the side of the road. Beijingers call them "Xiangzi"; celebrating the struggles of a hero from the past.

Flawed, but riveting, engrossing slice of life film. A stark social realist film coming from a semi-socialist country. The first film from the People's Republic of China to be shown in an American theater, Rickshaw Boy is not just a story about Chinese rickshaw pullers, but about the meaning of being working class in any capitalist society from Mexico to the US. The film takes place in capitalist, per-revolutionary China. The city of Beijing provides a backdrop to this film; a city depicted as dirty, dilapidated metropolis with severe class divisions. The wealthy who live in spacious mansions to the poor who live in 1 room hovels. Capitalism promotes the myth that hard work, determination, and thrift are rewarded with prosperity. These ideals the Rickshaw boy believes in at the beginning of the film are ruthlessly laid bare by the end of the film as capitalist myths. No amount of hard work is rewarded as we see in a purely capitalist society and can never be. The poor survive by helping and caring for each other, but that it not enough in a system of government where poverty can only breed poverty. This dog eat dog world created by capitalism consumes everything as we see in the film; loved ones, even honor and dignity. Those at the very top represented by the wealthy Ricksaw business owner couldn't even care about their own children,, because in an economic world absorbed with money only generating money matters to those controlling the system. The film is well-cast with spectacular gut-wrenching performances. It is totally engrossing as a film, because the conditions of the Ricksaw boy are conditions that all of us as working class people from around the world have endured to some level in our lives. It's only flaw is the lack of character development between the characters. More time should have been spent in developing this. If it did, it could have earned 10 stars.