Find Your Voice

热血合唱团

Hong Kong/China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 97 mins.

Director: Guan Xinhui 关信辉 [Adrian Kwan].

Rating: 3/10.

Corny heartwarmer about problem students being formed into a choir is cliched and thinly written.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. Yan Zilang (Liu Dehua), a well-known choral conductor who has been working in the US, is asked by his old friend Lu (Lu Guanting), headmaster at Wayford International Music Academy, to help in an experimental programme to motivate via music a group of hand-picked problem students from lower-level high schools in east Hong Kong. The scheme is called the Find Your Voice Experimental Programme 热血合唱团实验计划. Yan Zilang, who has had his own problems in the US, agrees and is given nine months to mould the 32 teenagers into a competitive choir for the annual Hong Kong School Choir Competition, traditionally won by the privileged St. Adrian’s College Choir taught by the arrogant Sun Jun (Lei Songde). The group includes Feng Xinxi (Wang Zhiqian), a brawler from a broken home (Guan Lijie, Li Lizhen); Zeng Xiaolong (Yao Xuezhi), who lives with his single mother (Sun Jiajun); Yang Jiabi (Lin Kailing), who’s obsessed with dating boys and repeatedly self-harms; Li Yun’er (Wu Yongshi), who’s into cosplay; He Miaoli (Wang Jiahui), who appears to be autistic; and Xie Bowen (Wu Zhuoheng), son of a rich businessman who neglects him. Alone among them, Xie Bowen voluntarily joined the scheme. Initially, Yan Zilang tries to build them into a team (one choir, one voice); finally, after six months, he’s built a cohesive group and starts teaching them the song “You Raise Me Up”. But when a fight breaks out during a public cosplay performance that Li Yun’er is in, the bad publicity has consequences. Xie Bowen’s parents bundle him off to the UK, Feng Xinxi starts brawling again, and so on. Then the chairman of the scheme, property developer Luo Xuequn (Wu Dairong), reveals his Plan B.

REVIEW

The latest heartwarmer from Hong Kong writing duo Guan Xinhui 关信辉 [Adrian Kwan] and Zhang Peiqiong 张佩琼 [Hannah Chang], Find Your Voice 热血合唱团 has the same “follow your dream” message as their previous Little Big Master 五个小孩的校长 (2015) but is far less effective due to its paper-thin script. As with Master, onetime “gospel director” Guan (Life Is a Miracle 生命因爱动听, 2001; The Miracle Box, 天作之盒, 2004) avoids any overt Christian sermonising in favour of just an optimistic, charitable tone, as a well-known conductor welds a collection of problem high-schoolers into a motivated choir. A typical “inspirational film” that still pops up on both sides of the Hong Kong/Mainland border, Voice is a corny feel-good movie that’s utterly predictable from its first scene, and only manages to scrape a 3/10 thanks to slick production values, especially the crystalline widescreen images of Hong Kong d.p. Zhang Ying 张颖 (Mad World 一念无明, 2016; Dealer/Healer 毒。诫, 2017; Sheep without a Shepherd 误杀, 2019). Largely due to the presence of megastar Liu Dehua 刘德华 [Andy Lau] in the lead, Voice made over three times as much (RMB70 million) as the previous film (RMB22 million) in the Mainland, though that figure hardly qualified it as a hit.

Liu had originally intended to be just the chief creative producer 监制, but finally took on the lead role as well – that of an “internationally famous” choral conductor (in the US, naturally) who agrees to return to Hong Kong to help out a friend (veteran composer Lu Guanting 卢冠廷 [Lowell Lo], looking artily scruffy) in an experimental social programme to motivate 32 problem students via the power of music. Liu’s conductor has nine months to whip them into shape to take part in the Hong Kong School Choir Competition, which has been repeatedly won by the St. Adrian’s College Choir, a mix of privileged Chinese and white kids under an arrogant teacher (gleefully played by composer Lei Songde 雷颂德 [Mark Lui]). You don’t need a road map to see where all the cliches are leading. En route, the script focuses on half-a-dozen or so kids with the traditional lineup of Hong Kong afflictions – a broken family, a single mother, an addiction to cosplay, an addiction to boyfriends.

Master, which was centred on a selfless kindergarten teacher in the New Territories, worked on a heartwarmer level thanks to a genuinely likeable lead performance by actress Yang Qianhua 杨千嬅 [Miriam Yeung], a script that had at least some content from being based on a true story, and very good chemistry between Yang and the five young brats. It, too, resorted to melodramatic cliches but, compared with Voice, it was a model of restraint. For a start, Liu is totally unconvincing as a conductor, waving his arms around as if he’s directing traffic rather than music. As an actor, he’s also very low-key here, delivering homilies to the teenagers but not really looking as if he believes them; a case in point is the long mea culpa speech in the final act that’s toe-curlingly arch. Throughout, the writing by Guan and Zhang (both committed Christians, and the latter also a professional counsellor) lacks any edge or sense of drama, overwhelmed by its own niceness.

Lu’s role as the conductor’s old pal is very slim; familiar names pop up here and there as parents (Li Lizhen 李丽珍, Sun Jiajun 孙佳君, Xie Junhao 谢君豪) or officials (Zheng Danrui 郑丹瑞 [Lawrence Cheng], Wu Dairong 吴岱融) to transient effect. The sole Mainland character – this being a co-production – wanders in and out of the story with little explanation, played with a bemused look by Harbin-born E Jingwen 鄂靖文 (aka E Bo 鄂博), so good as the plucky wannabe in the otherwise ragged The New King of Comedy 新喜剧之王 (2019). The younger cast – none of them first-timers – are okay, with no standouts.

Underscoring is sweet, dominated by piano. The songs performed by the choir have inspirational titles like “When You Believe” and “You Raise Me Up”, and even the (fictional) music academy is called Wayford (= way forward). But the most egregious moment comes in the closing minutes: as a last sign of desperation, a rap number is inserted into the finale to make the whole thing somehow seem “relevant”. The film’s Chinese title literally means “The Hot-Blooded Choir”.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Bona Culture & Media (CN), Bona Film Group (CN), Bona Entertainment (HK), Infinitus Entertainment (HK), A Really Happy Film Distribution (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Infinitus Entertainment (HK).

Script: Guan Xinhui [Adrian Kwan], Zhang Peiqiong [Hannah Chang]. Photography: Zhang Ying. Editing: Wang Hai. Music: Wang Jianwei, Wu Zhongheng. Art direction: Wang Huiyin. Costume designer: Chen Ziwen. Sound: He Zhitang, Li Zhixiong. Action: Wang Zhiwen.

Cast: Liu Dehua [Andy Lau] (Yan Zilang/Joseph), Lu Guanting [Lowell Lo] (Lu, headmaster), Lei Songde [Mark Lui] (Sun Jun/Louis, St. Adrian’s College Choir head), E Jingwen (Tang, teacher), Wu Dairong (Luo Xuequn, Find Your Voice Experimental Programme chairman), Xie Junhao (Xie Bowen’s father), Li Lizhen (Feng Xinxi’s mother), Sun Jiajun (Zeng Xiaolong’s mother), Guan Lijie (Feng Xinxi’s father), Yin Yangming (Li Yun’er’s father), Yu Miao (Li Yun’er’s mother), Chen Lingzi (music teacher), Zheng Danrui [Lawrence Cheng] (choir-competition chairman), Wang Jiahui (He Miaoli, autistic girl), Lin Kailing (Yang Jiabi, dating girl), Wu Yongshi (Li Yun’er, cosplay girl), Yao Xuezhi (Zeng Xiaolong, single-mother boy), Wang Zhiqian (Feng Xinxi, injured-arm boy), Wu Zhuoheng (Xie Bowen, rich boy), Ou Zaiqi (Wu, headmaster), Wang Yihua (Tang, headmaster), Xu Minghui (Chen, headmaster), Chen Xiaoyan (Wu).

Release: Hong Kong, 26 Nov 2020; China, 13 Nov 2020.