Proud of Me
爸，我一定行的
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.
Director: Lan Hongchun 蓝鸿春.
Rating: 5/10.
Generic father-son light drama has a fresh feel from its lead performances and Shantou setting, though its anarchic promise remains under-developed.
STORY
Shantou city, Guangdong province, coastal southern China, autumn 2007. Aged about 18, 369 (Zheng Runqi) lives in a small riverside community with his widowed father Li Jinlong (Zheng Pengsheng), who runs a mobile food stall. He’s in his final year at senior high school but still shows no inclination to study. Instead he whiles away time with his friend Cao Ji (Lin Junxin) playing computer games in an internet cafe, falling asleep in class, and skipping homework. His father keeps urging him to study and get to university; 369 says he wants a mobile phone, like his friends, but his father says he’ll only buy him one if he gets to university. On one of the school’s public blackboards 369 pulls a prank by writing a poem addressed to a feminine ideal of patriotism and hard work; in fact it’s a coded love letter to one of his fellow pupils, Zhu Xiaomin (Zhang Yongxian). She seems to like his attention but he seems more interested in using her to cheat in class. After 369 runs away from the school during an official government appraisal, the headmaster (Chen Jinbiao) tells his father that he will have to be expelled. After 369 says he wants to get a job, instead of wasting time studying, his father finds him a job operating a sewing machine in an underwear factory where all the other workers are women. Later he gets into a fight in the internet cafe and is pursued by local gangsters, causing the locals to complain to his father. Zhu Xiaomin writes that she’s about to enrol at Shenzhen University; 369 is now working as a motorbike mechanic but is sacked from that job too. Several years later Zhu Xiaomin graduates and gets a job at a bank in Shenzhen; 369 is still going from job to job and hanging out with Cao Ji. Finally, at the age of 26, after eight years of drifting, he decides to go to Shenzhen. Following a big row with his father, he steals RMB1,000 from him and leaves that evening on a coach. Arriving in Shenzhen, he has lunch with Zhu Xiaomin, who turns up with her smart boyfriend, Jie (Chen Huanxin). The lunch doesn’t go well, and 369 leaves early. On a whim he enters a “Southern Internet Star” competition, singing the song I’m from Chaoshan 我是潮汕人. He quickly becomes an internet celebrity under the name Doggie 狗哥 and starts earning some real money. But when he calls home, his father still scolds him.
REVIEW
A fairly routine story of a rebellious, rootless son and his patient, widowed father gets a fresh coat of paint in Proud of Me 爸，我一定行的, a first feature by writer-director Lan Hongchun 蓝鸿春, then 32, that has two likeable lead performances that maintain a light touch and production values that belie its slim budget. Set and shot in its director’s home city of Shantou, southern China, with around 90% of the dialogue in the local Chaoshan 潮汕 dialect, it doesn’t fulfil the slightly wacky promise of its opening section, and belatedly tries to rediscover it during the end titles. Otherwise, it’s an involving, very promising debut whose seemingly modest take of RMB47 million on release in summer 2018 was surprisingly good for a no-name dialect movie.
During the first half of the 1960s, over 70 features were made in Hong Kong in the Chaozhou (aka Teochew) dialect – of which Chaoshan is a sub-set spoken in Shantou – 
mainly for export to Chaozhou communities in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. But in the PRC no features were made in the dialect until youth movie Love and Swatow 𬶍•恋 (2012), an indie production directed by Zheng Zhimin 郑智敏 that took three years to make and on which Lan worked as creative producer 监制 and co-photographer (see poster, left). Its success online spurred him to direct and co-write (with lead actor Zheng Runqi 郑润奇) the present film – a collaboration that they’ve since extended with Back to Love 带你去见我妈 (2022), a family light drama in which the Chaoshan dialect even becomes a plot point.
Though Lan says his biggest inspiration as a film-maker has always been Taiwan’s Hou Xiaoxian 侯孝贤 (who also helped champion dialect – i.e. non-Mandarin – cinema on the island), his style has none of the arty, meditative longueurs that Hou came to affect but instead captures a whole community in a way that Hou managed in his very early films like The Green Green Grass of Home 在那河畔青草青 (1982) and The Boys from Fengkuei 风柜来的人 (1983). The film is beautifully composed and shot by d.p. Hai Tao 海涛 (Love and Swatow) without ever seeming showy or detracting from the characters; also, Lan’s own editing is extremely smooth, and the music by Wu Zehua 吴泽华 and Li Yihan 李奕瀚 equally so, making the whole production hardly look like a first feature.
The story, spanning roughly a decade from high school in 2007, follows Our Hero (named “369”) from rebelliousness in the classroom, through a variety of jobs and tussles, to a major row with his father and his departure south to Shenzhen where he hopes to make his name and fortune. He does – ironically only as an internet celebrity – but with a couple of twists to his tale. Co-writer Zheng doesn’t go the obvious route of making 369 grouchy and unlikeable; in fact he’s often very charming between sudden outbursts of anger. And as the quiet, philosophical father stuck with a problem son, Zheng Pengsheng 郑鹏生 is also likeable, making the occasional scenes of father-son rapprochement fully believable. Other roles, like Zhang Yongxian 张咏娴 as a pretty classmate who befriends 369, veteran theatre actor Chen Jinbiao 陈锦标 as the headmaster and Lin Junxin 林俊鑫 as 369’s best pal, pop in and out as colour, with not much development; some weird internet denizens in the big city of Shenzhen animate the second half.
It’s a pity the film doesn’t pursue some of the comic ideas in the first half-hour, especially a wonderful sequence in which Our Hero and the whole high school burst into a musical number, or a later section in which his escape from school is shot like a prison break. The film’s comic view of the world of internet celebrity keeps the film light, but it’s not until the end titles, in which Lan and Zheng Runqi are shown discussing a new ending (which we then see), does the film try to recapture some of the early anarchic spirit. By then it’s too much, too late.
Adding to the sense of authenticity, some 90% of the actors are from the region, many friends of the film-makers. The scenes of the riverside community were shot in Jinzao township. The film’s Chinese title means “Dad, I Can Do It”.
CREDITS
Presented by Shenzhen Dream Catcher Culture Communication (CN), Shenzhen Top Funny Culture Media (CN), Shenzhen CYCAS Picture (CN), Horgos Accelerated Culture Media (CN), Shantou Dayu Culture Media (CN).
Script: Zheng Runqi, Lan Hongchun. Script advice: Zhao Qianqian, Guo Mingzhu. Photography: Hai Tao. Editing: Lan Hongchun. Music: Wu Zehua, Li Yihan. Art direction: Chi Zhequan. Styling: Peng Qinghong. Sound: Zhong Shangkui.
Cast: Zheng Runqi (369; himself during end titles), Zheng Pengsheng (Li Jinlong, 369’s father), Li Shuhao (Ximen), Lin Junxin (Cao Ji), Chen Jinbiao (headmaster), Zhang Yongxian (Zhu Xiaomin), Zhou Suqin (Jinfeng, Li Jinlong’s sister-in-law), Zheng Huisong (Huang Mao/Yellow Hair), Su Xizhen (Pan Qiong’e, shopkeeper), Chen Yuxi (music teacher), Wan Lin (Wang Tiebo), Lin Ziyue (Zhang), Sun Kaifeng (primary-school boy in internet cafe), Ke Lixia (mother in internet cafe), Zhang Yijiu (class teacher), Li Dan (Zhu Xiaomin’s best friend), Lian Rongze (La Li, bald boy), Huang Pingfen (female worker in underwear factory), Wu Guohe (gangster boss), Chen Yaocheng (motorbike-shop owner), Chen Huanxin (Jie, Zhu Xiaomin’s boyfriend), Wei Heng (Wei Heng, young contestant), Zeng Xiaojun (female internet celebrity), Lin Lixian (Lan Guoguo, old male contestant), Zeng Zhixin (Ke Min, head judge), Chen Yanpeng (Wang An’an, judge), Zhou Hongbing (Wang Tiebo’s female assistant), Fang Zhanrong (wedding host), Lan Hongchun (himself during end titles).
Release: China, 24 Aug 2018.