The Ark of Mr. Chow

少年班

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 104 mins.

Director: Xiao Yang 肖洋.

Rating: 7/10.

Entertaining but under-developed youth movie centred on a group of student prodigies.

STORY

A university in China, 10 Sep 1998. Among those enrolling for the new academic year are members of the so-called Youth Class 少年班, elite students aged 15 and upwards who have been handpicked from around the country for their above-average abilities. This year, the group of 22 chosen by university professor Zhou Zhiyong (Sun Honglei) – himself a member of the first Youth Class of 1978 – includes Fang Houzheng (Li Jiaqi), from Jiangsu province; Mai Ke (Wang Yuexin), a delinquent type from Heilongjiang; Wang Dafu (Liu Xilong), a peasant from Henan; Wu Wei (Dong Zijian), a middle-class kid with a domineering mother; and Zhou Lan (Zhou Dongyu), the only girl in the group. One day, the boys spy on student beauty Jiang Yilin (Xia Tian), a dancer, exercising in the surrounding forest and are immediately enchanted by her. Zhou Zhiyong is told by the university’s chancellor, Liang (Zhao Lixin), that the Youth Class is elitist and should be halted; but Zhou Zhiyong produces a document from the Education Ministry that says the university must field a team in the prestigious International Mathematics Competition, whose prize is US$1 million. As he starts training the Youth Class, Zhou Zhiyong becomes annoyed that Mai Ke is being distracted by Jiang Yilin; instead, she befriends Wu Wei, to the annoyance of Zhou Lan, who likes him. A group of rich kids, led by Qin Hai (Wang Sen) and Song, start harassing the Youth Class but end up being publicly shamed by them. Finally, Zhou Zhiyong nominates the five members of the IMC team: Wang Dafu, Mai Ke, Fang Houzheng, Zhou Lan and Wang Wei. The four boys get drunk and Wang Wei confesses he’s not a genius like the others. All of them also realise they’ll never see Jiang Yilin again – and when they catch her in a compromising position one night, all hell breaks out on campus, threatening the Youth Class programme.

REVIEW

A light drama centred on a group of elite students in China’s so-called Youth Class 少年班 programme – devoted to precociously gifted teenagers – The Ark of Mr. Chow 少年班 starts out as a fresh spin on the currently popular Mainland genre of retro-youth movies but ends up as little different from the crowd. Despite that, it still represents an interesting directorial debut by 33-year-old Mainland editor Xiao Yang 肖洋, who’s worked regularly with Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 (If You Are the One 非诚勿扰, 2008; Aftershock 唐山大地震, 2010; Back to 1942 一九四二, 2012; Personal Tailor 私人订制, 2013) as well as with Chen Kexin 陈可辛 [Peter Chan] (American Dreams in China 中国合伙人, 2013) and on several notable indies (Kora 转山, 2011; The Continent 后会无期, 2014). Thanks to its lively performances, the film is consistently entertaining.

The main weakness is the script by Zhang Ji 张冀 (Chen’s American Dreams and Dearest, 2014) and Xiao (himself a former Youth Class student, aged 15, at Xi’an Jiaotong University), which fails to develop its unique subject-matter in a satisfying way and shows an easier preference for conventional student japes and young-love pranks. Though the core five students are an interesting and varied bunch – ranging from a delinquent type, through a Henan peasant, to a middle-class boy dominated by his mother – the script never gets beneath the skin of most of them in more than a superficial way.

The only girl in the group, played by second-billed Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨 (Under the Hawthorn Tree 山楂树之恋, 2010; My Old Classmate 同桌的妳, 2014), is largely ignored in favour of the boys, most of whose stories revolve round their hormonal infatuation with a lithe campus beauty (ballet dancer-turned-actress Xia Tian 夏天, 22, in a head-turning big-screen debut). The slow-burning love story between Zhou’s taciturn student and the mother-dominated middle-class boy (nicely played by up-and-comer Dong Zijian 董子健, from Young Style 青春派, 2013, Mountains May Depart 山河故人, 2015, and Young Love Lost 少年巴比伦, 2015) gains some emotional traction near the end but isn’t strong enough to provide a proper climax to the movie.

Instead of showing what makes the kids tick, and what they’ve sacrificed by being child prodigies, the script provides just a series of scholastic stunts in which they solve blackboard problems on cue. The most substantial character in the whole film, and the only one providing any real audience empathy, is their professor, a 44-year-old bachelor (and former Youth Class alumnus) called Zhou Zhiyong, skilfully played by the ever-reliable Sun Honglei 孙红雷 as a sly study in fastidious neatness and single-mindedness. Sun’s lightly comic professor develops into a touching reminder of how child prodigies can end up, shorn of social graces and any private life, and trapped in an academic world that increasingly considers such programmes elitist. His performance, at its best in scenes with Zhao Lixin 赵立新 (the family driver in Silent Witness 全民目击, 2013) as the university’s chancellor, anchors the film, allowing the younger cast to concentrate on more formulaic antics. But the whole movie could have been much more.

Technical contributions are top-line, from the textured widescreen photography by Li Ran 李然, who shot the campus youth movie So Young 致我们终将逝去的青春 (2013), to the smart editing by Zhang Weili 张为傈, who worked with Xiao on Personal Tailor. However, why the film’s English title uses the Cantonese version of the professor’s name – “Chow” instead of the Mandarin “Zhou” – and a couple of the students are given Cantonese names in the subtitles, remains a complete mystery, as the film has nothing to do with Hong Kong. In the film industry, it seems, some habits die hard.

For the record, the Youth Class programme was started in 1978, at the suggestion of Chinese American Nobel laureate Li Zhengdao 李政道  [Lee Tsung-dao], and was adopted by many of China’s leading colleges and universities; however, only two (University of Science & Technology of China and Xi’an Jiaotong University) now continue with it. The film’s original title means Youth Class.

CREDITS

Presented by CKF Pictures (CN), Huayi Brothers Media Corporation (CN), Artisan Pictures (CN). Produced by CKF Pictures (CN).

Script: Zhang Ji, Xiao Yang. Photography: Li Ran. Editing: Zhang Weili. Music: Mizutani Hiromi. Song music: Yang Zipiao. Lyrics: Xiao Yang. Vocals: S.H.E. Art direction: Du Guangyu. Styling: Wang Yi. Sound: Wu Jiang, Liu Jia. Action: Kang Hao. Visual effects: A Law.

Cast: Sun Honglei (Zhou Zhiyong), Zhou Dongyu (Zhou Lan), Dong Zijian (Wu Wei), Wang Yuexin (Mai Ke/Mike), Zhao Lixin (Liang, the university’s chancellor), Liu Xilong (Wang Dafa), Li Jiaqi (Fang Houzheng), Wang Sen (Qin Hai), Xia Tian (Jiang Yilin/Elaine).

Release: China, 19 Jun 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 2 Jul 2015.)