Cast
- Zhao Weiwei as Bin Bin. A young man most often seen wearing an oversized dress shirt, Bin Bin is frustrated by his life in Datong. His relationship with his girlfriend is distant but tender, while his relationship with his mother is strained. Despite his seeming timidity, it is Bin Bin who eventually carries out the poorly thought through plan to rob a bank.
- Wu Qiong as Xiao Ji. The long-haired Xiao Ji is Bin Bin's best friend. Considerably more reckless than Bin Bin, Xiao Ji's infatuation with Qiao Qiao drives much of the film's narrative.
- Zhao Tao as Qiao Qiao. Jia Zhangke's frequent collaborator (she also appears in Jia's Platform, The World, Still Life, and 24 City) plays the female lead of Qiao Qiao. Slightly older than both Bin Bin and Xiao Ji (the film states that she is born in 1980 making her 21 years old), Qiao Qiao serves as the singing and dancing enticement for the Mongolian King Liquor company. It is Qiao Qiao that explains the philosophy of "ren xiao yao," a form of hedonism. Jia wrote the character of Qiao Qiao to reflect the modern Chinese woman, who struggle between conservative tradition and modernity. According to Jia, Qiao Qiao is unable to continue her relationship with Qiao San because she cannot reconcile her hidden conservatism with the idea of becoming a mistress.
- Li Zhubin as Qiao San, Qiao Qiao's older boyfriend, former gym teacher, and current "agent." Unknown Pleasure's closest thing to a true villain, Qiao San is essentially a local thug in Datong. Though he is rarely physically violent himself, he carries a gun with him and has several of his cronies restrain and humiliate Xiao Ji at a dance club.
- Wang Hongwei as Xiao Wu. A small-time crook, Xiao Wu appears in the very beginning of the film attempting to hustle a few RMB out of the two male protagonists. Shortly thereafter he is arrested and taken away for unknown reasons. Xiao Wu shows up again later in the film to provide a loan to Bin Bin. The character of Xiao Wu, as played by Wang Hongwei, is presumably the same character from Jia Zhangke's debut film, Xiao Wu. In one of the film's more lighthearted moments, Xiao Wu asks Bin Bin if he has Xiao Wu, Platform or Love Will Tear Us Apart (directed by cinematographer Yu Lik-wai) DVDs. According to the director, this self-reference was possible in part because Xiao Wu (and Wang Hongwei) had become a cultural icon in China's independent film scene.
- Zhou Qingfeng as Yuan Yuan, Bin Bin's studious girlfriend. Throughout the course of the film, Yuan Yuan has dreams of getting into a Beijing university in order to study international trade. Yuan Yuan's character was consciously set apart from the main three characters, in that she is the only character with set goals for life and the possibility to escape provincial life.
- Bai Ru as Bin Bin's mother, a proponent of the Falun Gong.
- Liu Xi'an as Xiao Ji's father, an uneducated man who mistakes a single US dollar to be a fortune.
- Jia Zhangke plays a small role in his own film as the opera-singing man seen throughout Unknown Pleasures.
Read more about this topic: Unknown Pleasures (film)
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