Let Life Be Beautiful

再见吧！少年

China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.

Director: Lin Ziping 林子平.

Rating: 6/10.

Teenage cancer movie avoids sogginess most of the time, and is freshly played and directed.

STORY

A city in southern China, the present day. Wang Ye’an (Tan Kai) and Zhou Lan (Liu Mintao) attend a concert by Mainland singer Chen Chusheng (Chen Chusheng), hoping he will perform a song written by their 14-year-old son, Wang Xinyang (Rong Zishan). (At the age of 13, bored with studying but determined to be a star, junior high-school student Wang Xinyang had been delighted when a classmate sold him a guitar, so he could audition for the school’s forthcoming culture and arts festival. On the day, however, he had fainted halfway through his entrance, smashing the guitar. Hospitalised, he had been diagnosed with leukaemia and put in a special ward. When he was visited by his teacher and classmates, one of them – top student and study monitor Yu Xiaoruo [Gu Yuhan] – had offered to help with his schooling in hospital. As the medical bills mounted, his father had tried to sell his car; meanwhile, his mother had still insisted everything would be okay, although Wang Xinyang only had a 50% chance at best of recovering. He had struck up an online friendship with Tangtang [Wu Shuang], who was in another hospital in the city and said she had only a 20% chance of recovery. Meanwhile, his father, who had no money to spare, had bought a new guitar for him, much to his mother’s disapproval. In hospital, Wang Xinyang had befriended a tubby boy, Qi Dazhuang [Liu Renhe], in the same ward, as well as a young girl, Tongtong [Zheng Yingxian]. Yu Xiaoruo, who secretly liked Wang Xinyang, had continued to come in regularly to help with his studies, though he was only really interested in music. On the roof, where the kids went to play, they had eventually formed a group, Too Young To Die. They had also meet a moody older boy, Wu Han [Si Wai Ge], who turned out to be an accomplished musician. When Wang Xinyang started chemotherapy treatment, he started losing his hair and had his head shaved by his parents; Tangtang had sent him some woolly hats. Feeling better after the treatment, Wang Xinyang was able to return to the roof, and Wu Han had joined Too Young To Die as a keyboard player. Meanwhile, Wang Xinyang’s parents were running out of money and finally decided to sell their big modern flat. Over Chinese New Year, Too Young To Die had held a concert on the hospital roof that was attended by parents and staff. Soon after, however, tragedy had struck one of the group. Wang Xinyang was allowed to go home and return to school, but he felt strangely apart from the other students. Also, Tangtang had suddenly stopped replying to his texts.)

REVIEW

A leukaemia movie that rises above the disease-of-the-week genre thanks to some good performances and fresh touches, Let Life Be Beautiful 再见吧！少年 is an interesting first feature by Taiwan-born writer-director Lin Ziping 林子平, a largely TV director who in recent years has also worked in the Mainland. Funded by Mainland streamer iQiyi, it made no impression at the box office earlier this month (a mere RMB3.5 million) despite five days of previews – probably because it’s hardly the kind of escapist subject-matter that Mainland audiences are looking for at the moment. It went out on iQiyi’s own platform two-and-a-half weeks later, on 23 Oct.

Tainan-born Lin studied film at Syracuse University in the US during 1997-2000 and has directed or co-directed around a dozen drama series and documentaries. Between times he was also executive director on hit Taiwan high-school comedy Our Times 我的少女时代 (2015, dir. Chen Yushan 陈玉珊). In 2017 he was reported as co-directing, with Mainland author Sun Rui 孙睿, the film version of the latter’s novel Thrive As Grass 草样年华, starring two young Mainlanders, actress Wang Keru 王可如 and actor Liu Dongqin 刘冬沁 – though no more has been heard about the film since. [It finally emerged in autumn 2021 as To Be with You.] Beautiful is, therefore, Lin’s first theatrical feature to be released.

Though it’s hardly sentiment-free, the film keeps its emotions in a tight harness until the end, when the feelings generated can be said to be honestly won. For a start, the 13-year-old “hero” is hardly a knight in shining armour: he’s hopeless at school, avoids study like the plague, and is so obsessed with becoming a future singing star that he doesn’t even notice the devotion of his class’ top female student. His father indulges him, his mother tries to mould him, and an anonymous web-pal in another hospital massages his ego despite the fact that she claims to have even less chance of surviving than him.

All of these elements steer the film slightly away from a routine tearjerker, especially the portrayal of the parents whose roles develop in small increments. But what really prevents the film from becoming too soggy or depressing is the interplay between the five main kids: our young “hero”, a pugnacious tubby in the bed opposite, a young girl from another ward, an older loner (played by young singer Si Wai Ge 斯外戈, aka Liu Zhi 刘志) who turns out to be quite a musician, and, last but not least, his selfless classmate who holds a teenage torch for him.

In his first leading film role, Rong Zishan 荣梓杉, 14, who’s mostly worked in TV, acquits himself confidently opposite both youngsters and adults, as does Liu Renhe 刘人赫, 10, as the rambunctious tubby. Fifteen-year-old Gu Yuhan 顾语涵 (the straight-talking daughter in crime comedy Really? 我说的都是真的！, 2018) nicely underplays the classmate with a secret to hide, while on the adult side Tan Kai 谭凯 is likeable as the weak but loving father and top-billed Liu Mintao 刘敏涛 (so good in The Unexpected 原祸, 2016, and For the Memory Never Forgotten 黑蝴蝶, 2017) is, as usual, excellent (especially in a late-on breakdown) as the boy’s strict but loving mother.

The whole package is very smoothly put together, with subtly composed and lit photography by Hong Kong d.p. Yu Guangwei 于光维 (who shot the impressive Taiwan mystery-drama Partners in Crime 共犯, 2014) and understated music by Taiwan’s Xu Wen 徐文. The film notes at the start that it’s based on a true story, and at the end specifies the boy’s name as Wang Yueyang 王越阳 (1998-2015). Unlike the corny English title, the Chinese one simply means “So, Goodbye, Boyhood!”.

CREDITS

Presented by iQiyi Pictures (Shanghai) (CN). Produced by Tianjin Jet Cloud Picture Media (CN), Lightriver Culture & Media (Hangzhou) (CN), iQiyi Pictures 16 Studio (CN).

Script: Yu Lanxin, Wang Anqi, Fan Jing, Jiang Lihua. Photography: Yu Guangwei. Editing: Zhang Shaorui, Ye Yongzhen. Music: Xu Wen. Art direction: Chen Boren. Costumes: Zhu Yanyan. Styling: Wei Yujing. Sound: Yang Chujing. Executive direction: Xu Chengwei.

Cast: Liu Mintao (Zhou Lan, mother), Rong Zishan (Wang Xinyang, son), Tan Kai (Wang Ye’an, father), Gu Yuhan (Yu Xiaoruo), Xu Kelong (Xiaozhang, nurse), Liu Renhe (Qi Dazhuang, tubby patient), Zheng Yingxian (Tongtong, young girl patient), Chen Chusheng (himself, singer), Si Wai Ge [Liu Zhi] (Wu Han, musician patient), Kong Lin (head nurse), Zhao Jiaqi (Qi Dazhuang’s mother), Qu Yue (headmaster), Wang Hanbang (Wu Han’s father), Guo Wei (music teacher), Qin Hai (Liu, hospital doctor), Wu Yuanfang (Qi Dazhuang’s father), Yang Huiqin (Tongtong’s grandmother), Wu Shuang (voice of Tangtang), Zhang Rui (boy annnouncer at radio station).

Release: China, 5 Oct 2020.