My Original Dream
我的青春期
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 106 mins. (premiere version), 86 mins. (release version).
Director: Hao Jie 郝杰.
Rating: 6/10.
Coming-of-age story, set in Hebei province, is freshly handled and played, despite its generic content.
STORY
Gucheng town, Hebei province, northwest China, 1995. Zhao Shanshan (Wang Peng), aged around 12, is dropped off at the junior high school in Gucheng by his parents (Feng Si, Du Huanrong) and told to behave himself while away from home. Along with dozens of other unruly rural kids, he stays in the school dormitory, which is broken into by local thieves the first night. Soon Zhao Shanshan becomes an honorary member of the school’s prime gang, known as The Four Kings 四大天王, which avenges itself on the local layabouts. Privately, Zhao Shanshan has become obsessed with a graceful fellow student, Li Chunxia (Sun Yi), whom he spotted on the first day, though she hardly seems to notice him and he’s tongue-tied in her presence. Three years later Zhao Shanshan (Bao Bei’er) decides to carry on to senior high school – rather than vocational school – as Li Chunxia is also doing the same. He’s now geekier, plumper and with glasses, and, to the annoyance of his original deskmate Wang Juanjuan (Wang Juanjuan) who fancies him, he manages to manoeuvre a seat next to Li Chunxia in class. Over time they slowly become closer and finally share a kiss. But then Zhao Shanshan is warned to stay away from her by local hoodlum Chen Haonan (Li Ziyan) and is later shamed in class over his attraction to Li Chunxia. As everyone swots for the 2001 college entrance exam, Zhao Shanshan is mortified to find out that Li Chunxia is now dating Chen Haonan. After failing the exam, he visits Erwa (Shi Yue), an original member of The Four Kings, who’s working as a security guard at Beijing Film Academy. Zhao Shanshan is entranced by the place and writes a script about him and Li Chunxia called 我的春梦 (“My Wet Dream”), for which he is promised funding by two investors (Li Bin, Yi Ni). When Zhao Shanshan’s neighbour, a wannabe cameraman (Hao Jie), persuades him that only the real Li Chunxia can play her in the film, Zhao Shanshan and Er Wa go back home for the first time in eight years. They find all the characters of their youth dramatically changed.
REVIEW
The third in a trio of low-key character comedies by indie film-maker Hao Jie 郝杰, then 34, My Original Dream 我的青春期 was the most mainstream of the set, seemingly taking its cue from the latter part of his second picture, The Love Songs of Tiedan 美姐 (2012). As in that film, the central character’s life is marked by his affection for a special woman, though instead of spanning the mid-1950s to early 1980s the story in Dream is set from 1995 to around 2010, and with a much more semi-autobiographical flavour. Seen as part of a trilogy based around Hao’s home district of Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, northwest of Beijing, it’s a satisfying conclusion that shows how far he’s travelled as a film-maker from the first movie, the rough and lusty Single Man 光棍儿 (2010). Though it’s basically just another entry in the popular high-school-to-first-job genre, it’s done in a typically fresh way and benefits from having a name star (baby-faced Bao Bei’er 包贝尔) in the lead role, as well as the backing of Wanda Media. Box office was only a token RMB12.5 million – but that was still almost 20 times that of Tiedan. Hao was last heard of preparing a film about overseas Chinese students in the UK.
Opening with a home scene that visually links the film to Tiedan, Dream follows pesky young Zhao Shanshan, aged around 12, as his parents take him to the junior high in Gucheng, where he’s soon an honorary member of the school’s gang that stands up to local bullies. But from his first day at the school he’s been obsessed by another new arrival, the graceful Li Chunxia, who hardly seems to notice him at first. So far, so familiar, even as the story develops into senior high school and the pair become a sort of couple. It’s only halfway through the film, when Zhao Shanshan fails the university entrance exam, visits a friend in Beijing, and becomes an eager young film-maker, that the film gradually shows its teeth, as Our Hero revisits his home town after a gap of eight years to find everyone, including his first love, has changed.
Even when Hao is travelling familiar paths, he does so in a lightly charming way – as in the small increments of the boy and girl edging closer to each other during the first half. The film is majorly aided by an above-average music score, especially in the early section, and by the textured widescreen photography of d.p. Yang Jin 杨瑾 (Fly with the Crane 告诉他们，我乘白鹤去了, 2012), also an indie director in his own right (Er Dong 二冬, 2008), whose widescreen images underline the ochry northwestern light and clay, with the old brick buildings and deserted factories of 1990s China, without getting in the way of the characters. When the film enters “the second stage of my life”, as Our Hero travels to Beijing and its film school, the film’s palette becomes notably cooler, reflecting the changes in everyone’s life and the harder present.
Again, the theme of post-school disillusionment and change is nothing new to the genre into which Dream falls, but the script by Hao and Tiedan’s co-writer Ge Xia 葛夏 (one of the daughters in Tiedan, and here playing a prissy English teacher) manages to say a lot in a little and maintains an ironic tone throughout. As the younger Zhao Shanshan, newcomer Wang Peng 王鹏 hits just the right combination of wonder and rebelliousness, while Bao, who plays him from senior high onwards, is amazingly convincing as a teenage geek, despite being 31 at the time. A similarly fine job of dissimulation is done by TV actress Sun Yi 孙怡, then 22 and in her first major film role, who portrays Li Chunxia right through the film, from a shy 12-year-old to a battered adult, with complete conviction. Supporting performances are all flavourful, from the boy’s parents (Feng Si 冯四, Du Huanrong 杜焕荣, both errentai 二人台 performers from Tiedan) to his schoolpals. Hao himself pops up in a playful cameo as a wannabe d.p. who’s the hero’s neighbour in Beijing.
The film premiered at the Tokyo film festival in a version 20 minutes longer than the release one reviewed here. Though the chronology and dramaturgy are a bit choppy in the second half, it’s difficult to see what the original cut added to the story, as there are already signs in the release version of some padding during the second half. The film effectively ends at the 75-minute mark, and a fantasy sequence at the end, though striking, doesn’t add anything except more minutes to the running time. The Chinese title means “My Adolescence”.
CREDITS
Presented by Wanda Media (CN), Single Man (Beijing) Culture Development (CN). Produced by Wanda Media (CN), Single Man (Beijing) Culture Development (CN).
Script: Hao Jie, Ge Xia. Photography: Yang Jin. Editing: Zhu Lin, Wang Xiaoyi, Baek Seung-hun. Music: Na Risen, Zheng Zaihuan, He Miaoshu. Art direction: Peng Shaoying. Styling: Wang Tao. Sound: Wang Changrui. Visual effects: Wang Xiaowei, Zhang Wei. Executive direction: Shao Yuhua, Wang Xiaoyi, Chang Biao.
Cast: Bao Bei’er (Zhao Shanshan), Sun Yi (Li Chunxia), Wang Peng (young Zhao Shanshan), Feng Si (Zhao Shanshan’s father), Du Huanrong (Zhao Shanshan’s mother), Lan Jiang (Dawei), Guo Haijun (younger Dawei), Shi Yue (Erwa), Chang Biao (younger Erwa), Hu Hechuan (Sanleng), Hang Zhipeng (younger Sanleng), Zhou Biao (Sihou), Xie Haipeng (younger Sihou), Ji Xiang (Hongpingguo/Red Apple), Wang Juanjuan (younger Wang Juanjuan), Zhong Xingxing (Wang Juanjuan), Ge Xia (Wang Qin, English teacher), Dong Xinbin (junior high-school teacher), Liu Min (senior high-school teacher), Yan Jin (headmaster), Li Ziyan (Chen Haonan), Zhao Jianliang (Shanji, Chen Haonan’s sidekick), Chang Tao (money stealer), Wang Fa, Liu Enze (university classmates), Li Bin (Li), Yi Ni (Princess Yi Ni), Hao Jie (cameraman), Wang Xiaoxi (cameraman’s girlfriend), Erhousheng (blind singer).
Premiere: Tokyo Film Festival (Competition), 23 Oct 2015.
Release: China, 11 Nov 2015.