Song of Youth
老师！好
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 110 mins.
Director: Zhang Luan 张栾.
Rating: 7/10.
Period high-school movie is a smooth vehicle for veteran stand-up comic Yu Qian, if hardly original.
STORY
A city in northern China, 1 Sep 1985. On the first day of a new class at Nansu No. 1 Senior High School, experienced but strict teacher Miao Wanqiu (Yu Qian) disciplines half the pupils for various infractions, including ruffian Luo Xiaoyi (Wang Guangyuan) for carrying around a hatchet. When brainy but shy transfer student An Jing (Tang Mengjia) is introduced to the unruly class, Luo Xiaoyi immediately takes a liking to her, much to the displeasure of the coquettish Guan Tingting (Qin Mingyue), who is from a relatively well-off family and fancies him herself. She nominates Luo Xiaoyi for the post of class head but Miao Wanqiu appoints An Jing. To get their revenge on Miao Wanqiu, Luo Xiaoyi and some other pupils sabotage the mudguard on Miao Wanqiu’s new bike so that he’s splattered with dirt. Miao Wanqiu scolds them all during a PE class, though An Jing surprisingly defends Luo Xiaoyi. Later, Luo Xiaoyi, who lives with his grandfather, comes by Miao Wanqiu’s house with an official application to join the Youth League – actually written by brainier classmate Wang Hai (Xu Zili), who’s deliberately sabotaged it as a joke. Luo Xiaoyi is rejected. One evening Miao Wanqiu is called out by the police when Luo Xiaoyi is arrested over a turf fight with others selling goods. Miao Wanqiu later hears about the boy’s poor background: how he sells goods to make some money, and how he can’t afford an operation to remove a tumour on his pituitary gland. Miao Wanqiu arranges for him to be admitted to a hospital in Beijing and asks his class to raise donations towards the cost of the operation. Some time later, An Jing offers the now-reformed Luo Xiaoyi a second application to the Youth League that she’s penned herself. He asks her to help him with a test that’s being held the following day; but when the jealous Guan Tingting spots them together in a park, An Jing runs off in embarrassment. Luo Xiaoyi is finally admitted into the Youth League but Guan Tingting causes a scandal at school by publicly accusing him and An Jing of being a couple. Luo Xiaoyi in enraged and slips back into his bad old ways. As the university entrance exam approaches, Miao Wanqiu drives his students ever harder, going against school rules by giving them private cramming lessons.
REVIEW
Song of Youth 老师！好 is a fairly conventional high-school movie that’s been given a fresh coat of paint by being set in the mid-1980s. So instead of smart phones, social media and fashion wars, there are PE classes, applications to join the Youth League and sabotage of the teacher’s new bike. Engagingly played by its young cast, and smoothly directed by Beijing-born Zhang Luan 张栾, 38, it’s primarily a showpiece for veteran stand-up comedian Yu Qian 于谦, 50, who’s also credited as creative producer 监制 and whom Zhang (under his real name Zhang Heluan 张鹤栾) previously directed in the comedy Our Happiness 相声大电影之我要幸福 (2017). Originally set to be released in late December 2018 under a different Chinese title, 我们最好的时光 (“Our Best Times”), it’s proved a remarkably durable (if modest) hit this spring, amassing almost RMB350 million in its first month and still in the Top Ten. [Final tally was RMB356 million.] Happiness, by contrast, earned a mere RMB18 million.
Apart from a different physical look from being set 30-plus years ago, the film runs along pretty familiar lines and character types. There’s the tough but kindly teacher (who’s devoted his life to the profession), the rebel student (who’s finally tamed and even joins the Youth League), the goodie-two-shoes student (for whom the bad boy falls), the class’ rich-bitch (who also fancies the bad boy), plus various comic types. Though the episodic plot is set over a long period leading up to the university entrance exam, it flows well enough without any bittiness and is handsomely but not extravagantly mounted via the period-flavoured photography and art direction of Wang Jiandong 王建东 and Wang Xi 王希, both of whom make the setting look convincing in a natural way. Though the screenplay, co-written by Zhang with Xu Wei 徐伟, never reaches down very far, it’s completely free of sarcasm or irony towards the period setting, and its simple ingenuousness does finally pack an emotional punch. Zhang’s direction is way better than his pedestrian work on Happiness.
The humour inhabits an area between dryness and seriousness, expertly played by Yu in a way that engages with the younger cast rather than adopting a superior attitude. Twenty-one-year-old Wang Guangyuan 王广源 (from high-school comedy Seventeen and a Half Years Old 不了起的高二八班, 2018) is okay as the bad boy, not especially nuanced but not overdoing the moody looks, while the more experienced Qin Mingyue 秦鸣悦, 26, creates the strongest personality among the students as the rich-bitch. She manages to outshine second-billed Tang Mengjia 汤梦佳, 24, a former child actress in her first major screen role, who can’t do much of interest with the goodie-two-shoes role. Among the other pupils the most characterful is Xu Zili 徐子力, 24, fun as a pesky brainbox. Jogging things along – maybe in acknowledgement of the episodic screenplay – is a host of cameos by big names, including Wu Jing 吴京 as a gymnastics teacher, Zhang Guoli 张国立 as the old teacher’s mentor, Ai Lun 艾伦 as a goofy colleague in the corridor, Hu Jun 胡军 as a cadre reading a notice board, and actress Shi Ke 史可 as an angry teacher. Zhang himself pops up as a radio seller.
On the actual film, the Chinese title is clearly 老师！好, not 老师•好. It simply means “Hello, Teacher!” – a class’ traditional greeting to its supervisor. The rather lame English title stirs memories of the 1959 classic Song of Youth 青春之歌, directed by Cui Wei 崔嵬 and Chen Huai’ai 陈怀皑 (father of Chen Kaige 陈凯歌), starring actress Xie Fang 谢芳 as a convertee to the CPC during the early 1930s.
CREDITS
Presented by Illumination Pictures (CN), Er Dong Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Jianxin Culture (CN), Author’s Journey (Beijing) (CN), Wanda Pictures (CN).
Script: Xu Wei, Zhang Luan. Photography: Wang Jiandong. Editing: Qian Fang. Music: Zhang Yilin. Song: Xiaoke. Art direction: Wang Xi. Sound: Wu Lei.
Cast: Yu Qian (Miao Wanqiu), Tang Mengjia (An Jing), Wang Guangyuan (Luo Xiaoyi), Qin Mingyue (Guan Tingting), Xu Zili (Wang Hai), Sun Yiyang (Liu Hao), Xu Ziyin (Li Haiyan), Hao Pengfei (Jiang Wenming), Gao Xuanming (Guo Jianshe), Hei Mei (Miao Wanqiu’s wife), Tian Yu (provincial governor), Wu Jing (gymnastics teacher)), Zhang Guoli (Miao Wanqiu’s teacher), He Bing (photographer), Ai Lun (teacher in corridor), Hu Jun (cadre with glasses), Ma Weidu (old teacher), Shi Ke (angry teacher), Yang Lixin (teacher in audience), Qiao Shan (Zhang, crammer-teacher neighbour), Jiang Xiaohan (young teacher), Liu Wei (Zhihong, Luo Xiaoyi’s uncle), Ma Su (replacement teacher), Wang Zhifei (PE teacher), Chang Rong (PE teacher), Guan Ling (teacher in audience), Zhang Luan (radio seller), Ni Dahong (school caretaker), Han Tongsheng, Xu Di, Wu Yue, Sun Yue, Ding Haifeng.
Release: China, 22 Mar 2019.