City of Dreams [2023] [R] - 5.8.7 | Parents' Guide & Review | Kids-In-Mind.com (2024)

Why is “City of Dreams” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “strong violence including child abuse, bloody images, language, some sexual material and partial nudity.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a nude teen girl in a sales video, a kiss, some flirting, a reference to sex, discussions of child p*rnography, many scenes of young people and children being forced to labor in a sweatshop and being beaten and whipped when they get out of line, news reportage of companies forcing underage people to work, many scenes of yelling and coercion, and over 20 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

Based on the true story of a young boy (Ari Lopez) who travels from his home in Mexico to Los Angeles thinking that he will be participating in an exclusive soccer camp. However, he cannot imagine the horrors he will encounter. Also with Jason Patric, Paulina Gaitan, Renata Vaca, Samm Levine, Diego Calva, Nicole Andrews, Francisco Denis and Alfredo Castro. Directed by Mohit Ramchandani. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in Spanish with English subtitles and some lines are spoken in Spanish without translation. [Running Time: 1:36]

City of Dreams SEX/NUDITY 5

– A boy finds a dress that a teen girl was wearing hanging on a bed frame, finds a camera and watches a recording of a teen girl standing fully nude (we see bare breasts, abdomen, legs, buttocks and back, with her hands held over her genital area) while a woman’s voice describes her and talks about a price; the girl pleads to go home.
►A woman takes a teenage girl by the hand and leads her out of a room; we do not see her again (it is implied that she was sold into prostitution). A woman asks a teen girl about what God has taught her about love. A woman on the phone with a man tells him that sometimes she has sex with someone.
►A teen girl and a boy kiss tenderly. A teen girl flirts with a boy; she smiles and winks at him and touches his foot with her foot under a table. A woman hugs a boy and holds his head to her shoulder as the child cries.
►A teen girl wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage in a few scenes. A boy is shown shirtless in a few scenes (his bare chest, abdomen and back are seen). A man is shirtless in several scenes and we see his bare chest, abdomen and back with numerous tattoos. A woman in a fitting room is shown starting to undress (we see her bare shoulders and cleavage).

City of Dreams VIOLENCE/GORE 8

– A man holds a boy around the throat and presses a hot iron against his chest (we see the open burn wound later). A boy is handcuffed to a table as a man speaks to him and tells him that someone would beat another person until she could fill a glass with their blood in order to “remove weakness from his body”; another man stands behind the child and whips him repeatedly (blood splatters and we see lacerations later) until the boy loses consciousness. A young man confronts a shop owner and another man tackles him and punches him in the head and face repeatedly; he head-butts him, slams his head on the floor, spits on him (we see a glob of saliva and the young man’s very bloody face later), and he is dragged out of the room motionless. A man drags a boy by the arm and we see him waking up on the floor in a puddle of blood; another man picks him up and drops him into a cell in the floor where he is seen chained. A boy throws a sewing machine on the floor and stomps on it, hits it with a chair until the chair splinters, and a man takes the boy out of the room and removes his belt to strike the boy repeatedly; the man kicks the boy in the head and face and hits him with the belt as the boy grunts and moans (the boy’s face is bloodied and we see a puddle of blood on the floor); the man holds a pair of shears to the boy’s throat as armed police officers enter the area threatening the man to let the boy go and he holds the boy around the throat and puts the shears to his cheek; the man is forced to the floor and handcuffed while another man is chased onto the street outside and handcuffed.
►A man hits a boy in the head with a book and another man yells from off-screen causing everyone else in the room to stop working and sit silently; the boy quivers and sweats. A boy is struck and water is thrown on him in a few scenes. A boy is chained in a cell; a boy is dropped into a cell underground and we see him with chains on his wrists. A boy finds a video of a teen girl and panics when a man comes toward him; the boy hides and the man searches for him, stepping on a nail in the floor (we see blood); the boy is hiding under a floorboard and the man pushes the nail back into the board and the point moves dangerously close to the boy’s eye.
►A police officer rings a doorbell and a man answers; the officer asks the man questions, the man becomes belligerent and tries to hit the officer, the officer punches the man in the face and he is knocked to the ground (we see his bloody mouth) and the officer draws his weapon. A man opens fitting room doors searching for a boy, a woman screams and another man pushes the first man against the wall. A police officer threatens a man and the officer’s boss threatens to fire him if he doesn’t leave the man alone. A teen girl applies salve to a boy’s open wounds on his back with after being whipped and he moans and winces.
►A boy is taken to an abandoned building and shown a room where he is told to sleep on the floor with many other people; we see very dark surroundings with broken walls and dirty contents. A woman takes a teenage girl by the hand and leads her out of a room; we do not see her again (it is implied that she is sold into prostitution). A boy is shown scrubbing floors on his hands and knees. A boy hides in a clothing hamper and is taken in a van to a warehouse where he runs away from men that chase him; he runs out and onto a street, through alleys, to a roof, down a fire escape and jumps into a dumpster below before being struck by a police car as he runs across the street (he has a bloody cut on his arm and winces with pain in his leg). A man puts a sedative in a soda can and a boy drinks it and falls asleep as the man drives him to California.
►A man describes to his young son how his mother died during the boy’s delivery and we see the scene re-enacted in several scenes; a few of them show a shaman with a sharp implement cutting into the woman’s abdomen and taking the newborn (we see him covered with blood) and the umbilical cord is severed as the woman dies (we see the woman foaming at the mouth). A teen girl is shown to have scars on her back (we understand they are from being whipped). A woman has scars on her arm (possibly from burns). A teen girl has a scar on her face. A boy is seen with a bandage over one eye and stitches in a cut on his forehead and cheek.
►Children of various ages and young men are seen working in a sewing shop where they are required to work for most of the day and satisfy a quota or they will be punished with physical violence; the children are shown sweating and dirty. Police pull a car over and quiz the driver about running a stop sign; the man has a sleeping boy in the car that he identifies as his son (he is not) and the officer conducts a sobriety test. A police officer is reprimanded for assaulting a citizen and is threatened with being fired.
►A teen boy stands over a younger boy after he falls while playing soccer and makes a threatening gesture (implying castration). A boy imagines a shaman wearing a mask with sharp teeth and horns and chanting in a deep resonating voice in several scenes. A boy and his father sit near a grave with a marker and we understand that the child’s mother is buried there.
►We read that 12 million children are sold into forced labor. Several newscasts report about illegal child labor and child p*rnography in the United States.
►A boy imagines being a successful soccer player with large crowds of people cheering him from the stands in a few scenes; he is tripped during one of these scenes and he holds his leg in pain as another boy calls out that it was an illegal tackle.
►A boy urinates and we see the stream and hear trickling.

City of Dreams LANGUAGE 7

– About 21 F-words and its derivatives, 9 scatological terms, 6 anatomical terms, 8 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for Chinese people, name-calling (dumb, homie, bastard, princess, bastard, pig), exclamations (shut the [F-word deleted] up, bloody, whatever), 2 religious profanities (GD), 13 religious exclamations (e.g. Lord, God, oh my God, Jesus Christ, oh God, God is with us). | profanity glossary |

City of Dreams SUBSTANCE USE

– A man puts drops of liquid (a sedative) in a young boy’s can of soda and the boy falls asleep, and a man uses an inhaler after chasing a boy. A man smokes cigarettes in several scenes.

City of Dreams DISCUSSION TOPICS

– Human trafficking, destiny, freedom, child prostitution, child trafficking, Homeland Security, child p*rnography, disappointment, corruption, cartels.

City of Dreams MESSAGE

– Child trafficking should be stopped.

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We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.