Called by one critic a "semi-demi-remake" of The Bicycle Thief, Wang’s film tells the story of a young bicycle messenger from the countryside whose primary means of transportation and income, an expensive new mountain bike, is stolen just as he has nearly earned enough to buy it from his employer. Updating the story from the poverty of postwar urban Italy to the bustle of present-day Beijing, the film centers on the boy’s daunting search through a city full of bicycles until he eventually confronts a young student who has now come to possess the missing property. Their conflict, and the meaning the bicycle holds for each of them, is set against the backdrop of the alleyways and side streets of a changing Beijing. It is a graceful and inviting story of loneliness in a crowded city.