Singing When We’re Young

初恋未满

China, 2013, colour, 1.85:1, 103 mins.

Director: Liu Juan 刘娟.

Associate director: Fan Jinxuan 范金轩.

Rating: 8/10.

Engaging, uncynical portrait of Mainland high-schoolers in the mid-1990s.

STORY

Chongqing, 1997. Pretty Dong Jiujiu (Zhang Hanyun), 18, is a quiet student at No. 18 High School who idolises Cantonese singers from Hong Kong and secretly dreams of becoming a pop star herself. She lives alone with her conservative mother (Pan Jie), who is still grieving over the recent death of her husband (Ni Dahong) in a car accident; she opposes her daughter having any kind of fun and urges her to study hard for the forthcoming college entrance exam. At school Dong Jiujiu’s best friend is the outgoing Han Xia (Wu Yuyao), who is always pushing her to be more daring. Han Xia herself also has a secret admirer in the geeky Zhou Yunkai (Li Qingke). The two girls hang out with a group of four boys at the same school: Xia Jinghan (Ran Xu), who comes from a broken family and lives with his grandmother (Song Xiaoying); his childhood friend Luo Fan (Dai Xu), whose parents are also divorced but whose background is wealthier; tubby, apparently cowardly Zuoqiang (Zhang Zheng), nicknamed Wet Crotch; and tall, athletic Li Wei (Li Xian), a straightforward guy. One evening, while the group is celebrating at a karaoke club after a street brawl, a fire breaks out in Dong Jiujiu’s family flat due to a pot left on the stove, and her mother becomes distraught. Following a mass fight with the students of another school, Xia Jinghan is expelled and the other three boys get an official warning. Dong Jiujiu, who developed a liking for Xia Jinghan, is upset. When a singing competition is announced, Luo Fan presses Xia Jinghan, who’s now working in a restaurant to support himself and his grandmother, to take part. As the college entrance exam approaches, Luo Fan also urges Dong Jiujiu to take part, to encourage Jinghan. Dong Jiujiu keeps her decision secret from her mother, but private jealousies are already threatening to split up the group.

REVIEW

Seeped in an era of Mainland youth dominated by audio cassette players, Hong Kong pop idols like Mei Yanfang 梅艳芳 [Anita Mui], and girls looking at boys looking at girls, Singing When We’re Young 初恋未满 is an engagingly retro high-school/first-love movie that makes up in ingenuousness what it lacks in real depth. The film doesn’t have the sheer polish and underlying intelligence of the recent Young Style 青春派 (Liu Jie 刘杰, 2013) – also centred on students approaching the crucial college entrance exam 高考 – but is much less calculated and from the hip. Simply said, Singing doesn’t have one cynical bone in its entire body.

Located and shot in her hometown of Chongqing, central China, it’s an impressive feature debut by writer-director Liu Juan 刘娟, 30, a media and photography graduate who’s made commercials as well as making-ofs for two films by Zhang Yimou (A Simple Noodle Story 三枪拍案惊奇, 2009; Under the Hawthorn Tree 山楂树之恋, 2010). Singing has the feel of a movie into which Liu has poured all her memories of the period and her thoughts on the transcience and idealism of youth and youthful friendships – set in the crucial year of 1997, in which Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 died, Hong Kong was handed back to the Mainland, and China’s opening up and change to a market economy irreversibly slipped into high gear. “I was there, at that watershed moment,” Liu seems to say, “and here’s what it felt like, in all its teenage joy and pain.”

Though the movie is built up from stock characters and situations, and is always ready to slip into a musical montage rather than really get down to the emotional nitty-gritty, it earns an extra point for its sheer verve and likeable characters. There’s the pretty lead who dreams of becoming a pop star, her perky best friend who’s not so academically gifted, the handsome brawler from a broken family, his best pal from a wealthier background, and their tubby, cowardly tag-along. Liu’s script is somewhat scatter-gun in its early stages, not making it easy to sort out exact relationships and backgrounds; but as the film moves towards the summer of 1997, and a singing competition (rather than the entrance exam) provides the real climax, the various threads are slickly drawn together and resolved, with the Hong Kong handover and the title song (by veteran Hong Kong-born composer Chris Babida) providing an exhilarating emotional capper.

Apart from standout newcomer Wu Yuyao 吴昱瑶 as the heroine’s perky best friend, the young actors are stronger in ensemble than individually, though they catch the era in attitudes and demeanour. In her first film role, singer-TV actress Zhang Hanyun 张含韵, 24, is solid and cute enough as the girl who dreams of becoming a pop star, and ditto Ran Xu 冉旭 and Dai Xu 代旭 as her male admirers. Of the older cast, TV drama actress Pan Jie 潘婕 (as the lead girl’s mother) has a rather underwritten role; veterans Song Xiaoying 宋晓英 (Sunset Street 夕照街, 1983; Her Smile through Candlelight 烛光里的微笑, 1991) and Ni Dahong 倪大红 have more presence, if only briefly, in grandmother and father roles. Technical credits are up to scratch: the period setting is naturally caught by the art direction of Zheng Chen 郑辰, as is the backstreets life of the vertical city of Chongqing by d.p. Wang Boxue 王博学, without too much visual grandstanding.

The film was publicised as a resumption by producer Liu Dehua 刘德华 [Andy Lau] of his Focus First Cuts series by first-time directors that he launched via his company Focus Films in 2005. Though the film has a strong Hong Kong connection (especially via the leads’ idolisation of Cantopop, a natural thing at the time), the Mainland production is not officially part of the First Cuts series in any way.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Dejun Entertainment (CJ), Dongyang Qiushuitang Film & TV (CN). Produced by Beijing Dejun Entertainment (CJ). Executive producer: Jin Yan. Producers: Andy Lau, Fu Jia.

Script: Liu Juan. Photography: Wang Boxue. Editing: Kong Jinlei. Music: Chris Babida. Title song lyrics: Liu Juan. Vocals: Zhang Hanyun, Cao Xuanbin. Art direction: Zheng Chen. Sound: Wang Tong. Action: Qi Long.

Cast: Zhang Hanyun (Dong Jiujiu), Ran Xu (Xia Jinghan/Hanhan), Dai Xu (Luo Fan), Wu Yuyao (Han Xia), Zhang Zheng (Zuoqiang/Wet Crotch/Diaper), Li Xian (Li Wei), Ni Dahong (Jiujiu’s father), Wang Jinsong (school security guard), Song Xiaoying (Xia Jinghan’s grandmother), Pan Jie (Dong Jiujiu’s mother), Wang Yanhui (Luo Fan’s father), Qi Long (Hunhun), Li Qingke (Zhou Yunkai, student), Lu Qian (Xiaoke, student), Chris Babida (music judge).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (New Asian Talent Competition), 19 Jun 2013.

Release: China, 4 Jul 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 11 Jul 2013.)