[1] Like others in this generation, and in contrast with earlier Chinese filmmakers who produced mostly historical drama, Wang proposed a “new urban Chinese cinema [that] has been mainly concerned with bearing witness of a fast- paced transforming China and producing a localized critique of globalization.”[2] Many of Wang's works are known for their sensitive portrayal of teens and youths, most notable in films such as Beijing Bicycle, So Close to Paradise, Drifters, and Shanghai Dreams.

Wang Xiaoshuai was born in 1966 in Shanghai but spent the first thirteen years of his life in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou in southwestern China as a result of upheaval during the Cultural Revolution.

So Close to Paradise also marked the first time Wang operated under the Chinese movie-making authorities, but even then, the film was subject to multiple acts of censorship,[6] and it ultimately received a very limited release in China only after many years had passed.

Lost to obscurity, The House was essentially Wang's apology to the Beijing Film Studio for the bureaucratic morass that marked the release of So Close to Paradise.

[10][11] After the success of Beijing Bicycle, Wang made Drifters (2003) which screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Prix Un Certain Regard,[12] though it didn't win any prizes.