Papa
学爸
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 117 mins.
Director: Su Liang 苏亮.
Rating: 5/10.
A working-class widower becomes obsessed with his young son’s education in this light drama with a serious message.
STORY
A city in Sichuan province, southwest China, 2015. Thanks to a personal connection with an official (Wang Xun) in the registration department, Lei Dali (Huang Bo) manages to avoid the long queue of expectant parents and enrol his six-year-old son Lei Xiaomi (Shan Yuhao) at the prestigious Huaiyangli primary school, even though it’s not in the area he lives in. Following the death of his wife Yajun while she was still young, bath house owner Lei Dali has raised his son alone and is obsessed with getting him into the best school. His wealthy father-in-law (Wang Qingxiang), who never approved of Yajun marrying Lei Dali, suddenly turns up from Shanghai and says he wants to take Lei Xiaomi back with him, to raise him properly and give him a good education. Lei Dali refuses. However, his contact at the primary school then says he can’t help him after all, and suggests Lei Xiaomi stays on at kindergarten for a further year and tries again after that. Lei Dali doesn’t even have a residence permit for the city, let alone a home in a good school district, so when an estate agent (Wu Lei) says he knows a divorcee with a residence permit who’s willing to go through a paper marriage for RMB100,000, Lei Dali agrees. However, after Lei Dali does the deal with Liu Zhenzhen (Yan Ni) and the two get married, the estate agent has difficulty finding him a flat in the right school zone. He eventually finds a supposed “haunted” flat but Lei Dali has to pay way over the odds in order to outbid another buyer – who turns out to be his friend and assistant Huo (Zhang Zixian) and his ambitious wife (Wan Qian), who want the property in order to get a good school for their own young son, Jianjian (Wang Ziming), who’s actually Lei Xiaomi’s best pal. However, everyone then discovers the flat is useless, as it’s just outside the preferred school zone. At the end of his wits, Lei Dali asks advice from Liu Zhenzhen, whose young daughter Meimei (Yang Manling) goes to a private primary school and is highly motivated to succeed. Despite all his efforts, Lei Dali can’t get Lei Xiaomi to take his studies seriously; but a close friendship grows between Lei Dali and Liu Zhenzhen as they spend more and more time together. When Lei Dali’s father-in-law dies, at the funeral in Shanghai he meets his late wife’s younger sister, Gao Yalin (Zhang Junning), who’s returned from overseas with her young son Lucas (Tyler Manz). Lucas is enrolled at a very classy bilingual international school in Shanghai, and Gao Yalin tells Lei Dali she knows someone in the admissions department.
REVIEW
An uneducated bath house owner becomes obsessed with getting his six-year-old son into the best school in Papa 学爸, a light drama with a serious message starring (and creatively produced 监制 by) popular comedian Huang Bo 黄渤. At almost two hours it’s way over-long for what is basically a small movie with a very simple plot, though it’s just about sustained by Huang’s un-goofy performance as the determined widower, young Shan Yuhao 单禹豪 as his very confidant kid, and a raft of strong supports, including comedienne Yan Ni 闫妮 as a divorcee and Wan Qian 万茜 as a friend’s wife with a volcanic temper. Smoothly directed by Shandong-born Su Liang 苏亮, 38, in his first feature as director after co-writing a mixed bag of commercial comedies (Lost in Hong Kong 港囧, 2015; Father and Son 父子雄兵, 2017; Monster Hunt 2 捉妖记2, 2018; hacker caper Reborn 解码游戏, 2018), it’s taken a very pleasant RMB600 million-plus in its first month or so of release, largely on the strength of Huang’s name. [Final tally was RMB615 million.]
For most of the film Huang skilfully underplays the role of the father, a bath house owner who lives above the business and doesn’t even have a residence permit for the city. Since the early death of his wife – the daughter of a wealthy Shanghaier who opposed the marriage, as we’re informed in a stitched-in scene – Lei Dali has made it his life’s ambition to give his son the education he himself never had, with no help from anyone and just the money he’s made from his business. That’s the plot, and the the next two hours is basically variations on that theme.
Finding a home in the right area, and getting one’s kids into that area’s choice schools, is a major obsession in China, as in many other countries – and Papa isn’t the first film to be centred on this problem. The slight difference here is that Lei Dali has to learn that getting his boy into the right school isn’t everything, despite all the money one throws at it; knowing your child’s abilities and limitations is more important for the future, and as big an obligation for a parent as just providing the best. The message, which becomes increasingly obvious as the film proceeds, is hammered home in a soppy ending which throws all of the preceding restraint out of the window.
That’s a pity, as Papa has several things to recommend it up to then, especially the excellent chemistry between Huang and the young Shan as father and son, with the former (actually a northerner) putting on a broad, working-class Sichuan accent and the latter acting way above his age as a confidant six-year-old who answers his dad back. Playing absolutely straightfaced, comic veteran Yan has some stern fun as a divorcee with a child of her own who’s willing to enter a paper marriage (for a fee), while the under-rated Wan, so good as the wife in God of War 荡寇风云 (2017), pathologist in Guilty of Mind 心理罪 (2017) and tough birth-mother in The Oldtown Girls 兔子暴力 (2020), is very good as the best friend’s seemingly mild-mannered wife who’s always throwing rages and bullying her weak spouse. Smaller parts by comedian Wang Xun 王迅 (as a duplicitous “friend”), Wu Lei 吴磊 as an oily estate agent and Wang Qingxiang 王庆祥 as the rich father-in-law are equally well appointed, while German-born, Taiwan-raised Zhang Junning 张钧甯 is classy in the later stages as the sister-in-law from overseas.
The handheld photography by Jian Liwei 简立威 (Go Lala Go! 杜拉拉升职记, 2010; Impossible 不可思异, 2015; A Busy Night 情况不妙, 2016) has no special visual style but lets the performances bloom. In the main titles, Huang’s credit as creative producer pointedly comes after the director’s. The film, whose Chinese title means “Learn from Dad”, was shot over a long period, due to Covid restrictions, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, between Apr 2021 and Jan 2022.
CREDITS
Presented by Hunan Yinhe Kuyu Culture & Media (CN), Shanghai Hanna Pictures (CN), Huanxi Media Group (Beijing) (CN), Shanghai CMC Pictures (CN), Xi’an Pinewood Pictures (CN).
Script: Su Liang, Lu Shu. Photography: Jian Liwei. Editing: Tu Yiran. Music: Hu Xiao’ou. Production design: Lin Mu. Art direction: Li Yading. Styling: Lei Shuyu. Sound: Yin Jie. Visual effects: Dong Mingxing, Wang Xiqing.
Cast: Huang Bo (Lei Dali), Shan Yuhao (Lei Xiaomi), Yan Ni (Liu Zhenzhen), Zhang Junning (Gao Yalin, Lei Dali’s sister-in-law), Zhang Zixian (Huo), Wan Qian (Huo’s wife), Wang Xun (Lu, school registration official), Wu Lei (Xiaowang, estate agent), Wang Qingxiang (Gao Yalin’s father, Lei Dali’s father-in-law), Yang Xinming (Li, old professor), Zhang Lei (Liu, teacher from school admissions office), Fu Shou’er (further-education instructor), Wang Ziming (Jianjian, Huo’s young son), Yang Manling (Meimei, Liu Zhenzhen’s young daughter), Tyler Manz (Lucas, Gao Yalin’s young son).
Release: China, 18 Aug 2023.