'BICYCLE' PEDDLES ITS STORY WITH BEAUTY, CHARM.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Transportation is the root of all evil, according to ``Beijing Bicycle.''

A sensitive, modest comic tragedy that works as both character study and symbolic examination of the huge economic changes sweeping modern China, the film owes some kind of debt to that granddaddy of any two-wheeled social study, Vittorio De Sica's neo-realist masterpiece ``The Bicycle Thief.'' But considering how the bike is even more integral to Chinese urban life than it was to survival in postwar Italy, Wang Xiaoshuai's movie quite naturally stands on its own two tires.

The simple yet richly worked-out narrative begins on the happy day when Guei (Cui Lin), a newcomer to the capital from a rural village, lands his first serious job. Hired by a big courier company, he's issued a snazzy new mountain bike and told that, if he works hard, he'll earn enough money to buy it for his very own.

Guei gets right down to business, pedaling madly around the growing city's contrasting economic zones, giving himself (and us) an eye-opening tour of China's hit-and-miss transition from a socialist system to capitalism. But just as he's about to purchase the bike that represents everything about his personal achievement, it gets stolen. Guei's career - and his suddenly revealed-to-be delicate psyche - subsequently suffers a paralyzing flat.

We then meet local schoolboy Jian (Li Bin), who has surreptitiously come into possession of Guei's wheels (which he later claims to have bought at a flea market; the film remains noncommittal as to whether he actually stole it or not). Jian lives in an alleyway tenement with his father, stepmother and smart little stepsister, whose schooling has just commandeered the family savings that were earmarked to buy Jian a bike.

Unknown to them, Jian's ill-gotten ride allows him to keep up with his already rolling gang of friends, and even attracts the attention of a pretty, wealthy girl, Qin (Zhou Xun). Though utterly different in particulars, it is every bit as cherished a status symbol as it was for its previous user.

When an obsessive Guei tracks Jian down, a series of back-and-forth bikenappings, intimidations and reluctant accommodations ensue. There are numerous conniptions and much crying, which indicates that traditional notions of Chinese reserve are about as outdated as Mao's Little Red Book nowadays. But just at the point where city boy and country lad grudgingly learn to respect the chain that binds them, that darn bike leads to even worse trouble.

While he cannot boast the pictorial brilliance that we associate with China's best filmmakers, Wang employs his urban settings evocatively enough, culminating with a kinetically thrilling, deadly chase through a maze of tumbledown shacks, dead-end courtyards and paths no newcomer can hope to navigate. ``Beijing Bicycle'' presents an apt metaphor for a culture that's barreling unstoppably forward with only the vaguest notion of where things are actually going.

``BEIJING BICYCLE''

(Rated PG-13: violence, language, nudity)

The stars: Cui Lin, Li Bin, Zhou Xun.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai. Written by Peggy Chiao, Hsu Hsiao-ming and Wang. Produced by Han Sangping, Hsu and Chiao. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 53 minutes.

Playing: Paseo Stadium 14, Pasadena; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.

Our rating: Three stars

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Guei (Cui Lin) gets a courier job, then loses his transportation, in in ``Beijing Bicycle.''