Summer

野夏天

China/Taiwan, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 113 mins.

Director: Su Zhexian 苏哲贤.

Rating: 4/10.

Taiwan singer Chen Jiahua is overshadowed by Mainland character actor Geng Le in a messily written story about an athletics trainer and a team of high-school boys.

STORY

A coastal town, somewhere in Guangdong province, southern China, summer 2007. Journalist Wu Youli (Chen Jiahua), who’s recently moved from Taibei, Taiwan, is working at Nanfeng TV, a regional station where she is treated like the office dogsbody. Finally she’s given as assignment by the editor-in-chief (Zhou Zhimin) to do a report on the track-and-field team at Zhenhua high school, in the coastal town of Lucheng, at the request of the school’s headmaster, Lv Yan [Chen Yiwen]. In search of past athletic glories for the school, Lv Yan has brought in as trainer his old friend Gao Jishu (Geng Le), a onetime athletics star-turned-taxi driver who was bumming around in a billiards hall after having been deserted by his wife and teenage son. Gao Jishu manages to put together a team of four boys – Yan Long (Lan Haodong), Wang Jiacheng (Li Chengzhan), Zhu Mingming (Zhan Mu) and Zuo Bai (Li Rizhan) – who initially rebel against his tough regimen but later come to respect him. To make up the team of five, Gao Yishu persuades his estranged son, Gao Bowen (Lin Huimin), to join, even though it means him transferring from a better school. Gao Jishu also finally agrees to do an interview with Wu Youli about his time as a professional runner during 1985-95, a career that had suddenly ended mysteriously. All seems to be going well until the night before the qualifying race of the 2007 Provincial Youth Marathon, when Gao Bowen and Yan Long are beaten up by local thugs at the billiard hall and Yan Long is wounded in his left leg. Despite that, Yan Long insists on competing, and forces Gao Jishu to inject him with some kind of drug. The Zhenhua team just manages to qualify – but in her TV report, aired that evening, Wu Youli blows the whistle on Yan Long and Gao Jishu. She subsequently leaves for a better job in Shanghai, and Gao Jishu, humiliated, ends up back in the billiards hall. But then the five boys entreat him to come back as their trainer.

REVIEW

Partly funded by Mainland companies but with all the key crew from Taiwan, Summer 野夏天 is pretty much a mess on every level, from the southern Taiwan locations pretending to be southern China to the attempt in the opening and closing scenes to make the film some kind of reverie on what is truth and what is human behaviour. A first feature by Taibei-born Su Zhexian 苏哲贤, 40, whose background is in feature documentaries (Hip Hop Storm 街舞狂潮, 2008; Fight for Justice 进击之路, 2016) and various shorts, it showcases veteran Taiwan singer Chen Jiahua 陈嘉桦, as a TV reporter, alongside grizzled Mainlander Geng Le 耿乐, as a onetime athletics star who trains a team of high-school boys to bring his alma mater some renewed glory. Unsurprisingly, the film sank with all hands in both the Mainland (a microscopic RMB660,000) and Taiwan (ditto NT$1.9 million).

Chen, 41, who under her English name Ella is the “E” in longtime Taiwan girl group S.H.E, is known for her deep voice and dusky presence – attributes she used to best effect in Bad Girls 女孩坏坏 (2012), her most fun film to date in which she played a female bully. Her other movie roles include the character comedy The Missing Piece 缺角一族 (2015) and the musical heartwarmer Listen Before You Sing 听见歌再唱 (2021), but it’s fair to say she doesn’t have much of a natural screen presence – especially in Summer, where, despite being top-billed, she’s acted off the screen by the experienced Geng as the no-good athlete-turned-billiards-hall-bum who’s given a second chance in life. And just in case no one in the audience recognises her, the script even has one of the high-school boys saying “Don’t you think she looks like Ella from S.H.E?” Really.

The script by Mainlander Tian Zixi 田梓汐 (her first) and Taiwan’s Wang Youhe 王又禾 has no idea what to do with Chen’s character, which could easily be taken out of the movie entirely. Instead, her TV reporter hangs around the school as the boys undergo the rigours of training before finally acting destructively prior to going off to a swish job in Shanghai. The whole story is framed as a kind of it-happened-one-summer flashback (from the reporter’s perspective) to 2007, when she was assigned the story while working at a provincial TV station. Early hints that she was treated as a dogsbody there are never developed, and the only strong character who emerges from the film is Geng’s, with a couple of the boys in second place. The basic story is over by about the 65-minute mark, with the remaining 40-50 minutes bringing the main characters’ stories up to date and ending with a reverie on the optimism of youth.

A cold and rather ungiving screen presence, Chen doesn’t have the acting technique to flesh out a role that’s seriously underwritten in the first place. An always reliable character actor (Shanghai Calling 纽约客@上海, 2012; An End to Killing 止杀, 2012; Angels Wear White 嘉年华, 2017; Love Education 相爱相亲, 2017), Geng, 48, gives his character depth, empathy and a rough charm, with the film’s real drama lying in his character’s relationship with the boys and his estranged son (played okay by Taiwan’s Lin Huimin 林晖闵, from Starry Starry Night 星空, 2011) rather than with Chen’s reporter. Among the boys, Lan Haodong 蓝晧东 and Li Chengzhan 李丞展 make the most impression, though as individuals the group is not especially differentiated. Popping up in extended cameos are Taiwan director Chen Yiwen 陈以文 (The Cabbie 运转手之恋, 2000) as the high school’s comic headmaster and aboriginal actress/singer/presenter Huang Jingyu 黄瀞怡, aka Xiaoxun 小薰, as a fried-chicken shop owner.

On a technical level the film is okay, with all key crew being from Taiwan, including experienced editor Chen Bowen 陈博文 and stylist Xu Liwen 许力文. However, the score by France’s Javier Jamaux is practically invisible. The film’s Chinese title literally means “Wild Summer”.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Tus Film & TV Media (CN), M’Stones International (TW), Eachtoon (Beijing) Media (CN). Produced by Beijing Tus Film & TV Media (CN), M’Stones International (TW), Eachtoon (Beijing) Media (CN).

Script: Tian Zixi, Wang Youhe. Photography: Zhang Dazhi. Editing: Chen Bowen. Music: Javier Jamaux. Art direction: Wu Zhongxian. Styling: Xu Liwen. Sound: Li Yuzhi, Hu Xusong. Action: Chen Wei’an.

Cast: Chen Jiahua (Wu Youli), Geng Le (Gao Jishu), Chen Yiwen (Lv Yan, headmaster), Huang Jingyi (fried-chicken shop owner), Xia Hou Yunshan (Jian Ai, Gao Jishu’s wife), Lan Haodong (Yan Long), Li Chengzhan (Wang Jiacheng), Zhan Mu (Zhu Mingming), Li Rizhan (Zuo Bai), Lin Huimin (Gao Bowen), Liu Yuren (Shi Xiaoxing), Wang Yushu (Tian Manni, Wang Jiacheng’s putative girlfriend), Wang Yuping (Xia Xue), Zhou Zhimin (TV station editor-in-chief), Xu Liangzhi (Xie, news cameraman), Tu Kuanyi (Yan Long’s grandfather).

Release: China, 25 Mar 2022; Taiwan, 25 Mar 2022.