As a punishment, Beijing Bicycle was never given a permit to be shown in public in China and forbade Wang from shooting movies for one year. During this year, he was given the nickname "the underground movie director."

Wang first broke the rules of the film authorities by taking his first movie, The Days, abroad to movie festival. The Days was later collected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was included in British Broadcasting Corp.'s choice of the top 100 movies of all time.

Starting his career as "an underground movie director," Wang felt proud of shooting movies without a penny of government investment. "I was so eager to become a director immediately after graduating from the Beijing Film Academy," Wang recalled. There was no digital video camera and Wang had to find film video cameras. He had no fame or any money.

"The money had run out," Wang was told time and time again in the early days of his career. He was caught between raising funds and shooting scenes. Today, the anxiety of little money still haunts Wang. "I had the worst phobia during the shooting of Shanghai Dream, but luckily my capacity to borrow money has also progressed 10 times," said Wang.

Shanghai Dream has become a landmark movie in Wang's directing career as he was officially allowed to "walk onto the ground" again. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television organized a workshop at the Beijing Film Academy in November 2003, and invited some "underground movie directors," including Wang and Jia Zhangke. During the conference, the film authorities announced a new policy on issuing movie-shooting permits. In the past, to get a permit required the censor to review the complete screenplay, which could be returned to the producer for revision many times. The new policy requires registration of only a 1,000-character screenplay brief.

Shortly after the workshop, Wang's Beijing Bicycle became China's first "underground movie" to have its ban lifted.

(Beijing Review April 25, 2008)