Time Still Turns the Pages

年少日记

Hong Kong, 2023, colour, 2:1, 94 mins.

Director: Zhuo Yiqian 卓亦谦 [Nick Cheuk].

Rating: 6/10.

Psychological drama, sparked by a student’s suicide note, is an interesting idea that fails to go to the next level.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. High-school teacher Zheng Youjun (Lu Zhenye) investigates an anonymous note found in the school’s rubbish that was written by a pupil intending to commit suicide. The pupil described feeling worthless and easily forgotten. The note reminds Zheng Youjun of his elder brother, Zheng Youjie (Huang Zile), who was bullied by their abusive father, Zheng Zixiong (Zheng Zhongji), for being “stupid”. He also abused their mother, Li Jiaxin (Rosa Maria Velasco). (When a boy, Zheng Youjun [He Polian], had started to write a diary, hopefully to stop his father beating him too. But he had always been favoured by his father, as he was the brighter of the two brothers.) One pupil at the school, Vincent (Zhou Hanning), is always being bulied and getting into fights; but he won’t accept Zheng Youjun’s attempts at sympathy. Zheng Youjun and social worker Halena (Shao Meijun) suspect the writer of the note is class monitor Bethany (Wu Bing), as in the past she had cut herself when she had a problem; but they turn out to be wrong. (In the past Zheng Youjun had married a voice actress, Lin Xue’er [Chen Hanna]. The two had had a rich sex life; but when she got pregnant, he had said he wasn’t “ready” to be be a father. Later, they had divorced.) Zheng Youjun visits his now-divorced father, who is critically ill in hospital and being looked after by his young partner Zoey (Liang Yongting). Relations between father and son are cool. (After one tough talking to by his father, Zheng Youjie had committed suicide by jumping off a building, as he felt he was an impediment to the rest of the family. He was 10. Zheng Youjun had blamed himself for not spending more time with his elder brother; suddenly he had no longer cared about fulfilling his father’s expectations. His mother had finally divorced his father and left. At high school Zheng Youjun [Dai Yuqi] had met his future wife, Lin Xue’er, who was the younger sister of a good friend.) Soon after they finally bond in each other’s arms in the hospital, Zheng Youjun’s father dies. His ex-wife, Lin Xue’er, visits the funeral home. Zheng Youjun finally solves the mystery of the suicide note when the writer confesses to him.

REVIEW

An interesting idea that fails to go to the next level, Time Still Turns the Pages 年少日记 is a promising first feature by Hong Kong film-maker Zhuo Yiqian 卓亦谦 [Nick Cheuk], 36, after a couple of shorts plus various work as a scriptwriter. Starting out with a high-school teacher’s investigation of a student’s suicide note, the film gradually morphs – less convincingly, due to a choppy script – into an examination of the teacher’s own sense of guilt after his elder brother suicided years earlier. After premiering at the Shanghai film festival in Jun 2023, the Hong Kong production opened locally five months later, taking HK$25 million – a very solid amount for such a lowbudgeter that earned it third place among local productions that year.

Zhuo’s early shorts, Waiting to Drown 至少在梦里 and Starry Night 星夜 (both 2011), centred on the psychology of young people, though his subsequent work as a writer was in solid genre fare (comedy-horror Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight 今晚打丧尸, 2017; crime drama Paradox 杀破狼 贪狼, 2017, dir. Ye Weixin 叶伟信 [Wilson Yip], with Gu Tianle 古天乐 [Louis Koo]) and his next announced movie (Born Evil Seed 三杀) appears to be more of the same. Zhuo started writing Time back in 2015, based on the death of a university classmate; after various revisions, veteran film-maker Er Dongsheng 尔冬升 [Derek Yee] came on board in 2020 to help produce the final version, which was shot over 19 days in 2021. Er gets a creative producer 监制 credit on the finished film.

The film’s first half is strong, with high-school teacher Zheng Youjun taking charge of an investigation into which student wrote a suicide note found in the school’s rubbish. Zheng Youjun has a personal interest as his elder brother, who was always bullied by his father for being “stupid”, threw himself off a building years earlier. Various suspects hove into view, and for a while the film looks like becoming a serious look at the East Asian tendency towards student suicides. But as the flashbacks increase into Zheng Youjun’s past life – an abusive father, stormy family life, a disastrous marriage – the main plotline virtually disappears in favour of an examination of Zheng Youjun’s own fractured psychology. That seems deliberate, as by the end it hardly matters which pupil wrote the note; but the film’s structure in the second half is so choppy that it’s hard to become engaged in Zheng Youjun’s backstory, especially when it keeps slipping into cliches such as young love and bullying both at home and in the schoolgrounds.

Lu Zhenye 卢镇业, now 37, who was in Zhuo’s short Starry Night, as well as having supporting roles in family drama Fagara 花椒之味 (2019) and gay drama Suk Suk 叔•叔(2019), is just okay as Zheng Youjun, with no strong screen presence to convey the character’s complexity. Instead, the film is largely driven by turns from older actors such as veteran Zheng Zhongji 郑中基 [Ronald Cheng], in a barnstorming performance as the abusive father, and half-Chinese actress Rosa Maria Velasco 韦罗莎 (Heaven in the Dark 暗色天堂, 2016) as the long-suffering mother. Among the younger cast, newcomer actress Wu Bing 吴冰, now 27, is notable as a class monitor with a history of self-harm.

Technically, the film is professional but with no special visual style and lots of handheld work by Hong Kong d.p. Liuxing 流星, aka Zhang Yuhan 张宇瀚 (Table for Six 饭戏攻心,  2022). The Chinese title means “Diary of a Young Man”, far better than the pretentious English one.

CREDITS

Presented by MM2 Studios Hong Kong (HK), Roundtable Pictures (HK). Produced by Roundtable Pictures (HK).

Script: Zhuo Yiqian [Nick Cheuk]. Photography: Liuxing [Zhang Yuhan]. Editing: Chen Xiaojin, Zhuo Yiqian [Nick Cheuk]. Music: Ou Leheng, Liao Yingchen, Zhang Jianren. Art direction: Zhang Wen. Costume design: Luo Hanfang. Sound: Yao Junxuan, Li Yaoqiang. Action: Situ Huagan. Visual effects: Yang Minjie.

Cast: Lu Zhenye (Zheng Youjun/Alan), Zheng Zhongji (Zheng Zixiong, father), Chen Hanna (Lin Xue’er/Sherry), Rosa Maria Velasco (Li Jiaxin/Heidi, mother), Huang Zile (Zheng Youjie/Eli), He Polian (boy Zheng Youjun), Wu Bing (Huang Jiayi/Bethany), Zhou Hanning (Vincent), Dai Yuqi (teenage Zheng Youjun), Gui Chuoyao (young Lin Xue’er), Shao Meijun (Xia/Halena, social worker), Liang Zuyao (deputy headmaster), Liang Yongting (Zoey), Chen Yizhen (Chen, female piano teacher), Chen Zhanwen (male piano teacher).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Asian New Talent), 11 Jun 2023.

Release: Hong Kong, 16 Nov 2023.