Benutzerrezensionen

"Youth" is a beautifully made movie with amazing acting, a decent storyline, and a good rendition of a difficult time in China.

This movie definitely has its share of problems though. There seems to be a particularly large amounts of plot holes and unanswered questions. An example would be the strange event involving the main character's sudden emotional downfall. The editing also seems very harsh in places, extremely noticeable in the war shots. I would also like to say that the English translations in the theaters are quite bad to be bland. As a person who both understands English and Chinese, I was amazed by how debatable some of the translations were. They seemed to find a way to overcomplicate the translations, and make the complicated screenplay look simple.

"Youth" has some great acting from newcomer stars like Miao Miao and Elane Zhong. Xuan Huang gave the best performance in the film as Liu Feng, and Miao Miao surprised me with how much charisma she had playing He Xiao Ping. The acting overall is quite strong, and the actors all developed their characters well despite the small amount of character background. The visuals are nothing short of stunning from the beautiful dancing and choreography, to the breathtaking scenery that is very pleasing to the eye. Feng Xiao Gang also successfully produces a movie that accurately depicts the 1970's of China. This time period is basically untouchable, because of how delicate the government was then, but this movie really does try to show how the living condition was back then. Feng Xiao Gang seemed to have found a way to make a movie about the 1970's in China without offending the government too much.

"Youth" is full of lovable nostalgia and relatable moments. This movie will absolutely tug at your heartstrings and make you look back and treasure the moments of your youth.

Absolutely beautifully filmed Chinese movie. Most "nearly great" movies like this require a little suspension of belief and a "just go with the flow" attitude. Knowing what I do about the Cultural Revolution, I assume this is a fair glimpse of a very small facet of it. The tragic side: the burning of books, children sending their parents to prison, the destruction of careers and reputations, is not shown, but most informed people should know this by now. And, there are hints of it. And, in a totalitarian country, what else could you expect from a Chinese film.

I was very irritated by the review of this movie on RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams. Though it's hard to tell, I think he was criticizing this movie for some over-simplified view of the Cultural Revolution. I say "hard to tell" because some of Abrams' sentences are incomprehensible and make no sense. But, clearly this movie is not responsible for informing everyone of the whole story of the Cultural Revolution.

Maybe the best measure of authenticity of "Youth" is the fact that it is being attended in the U.S. by droves of Chinese Americans. Many of these, at least their parents, may have lived through the Cultural Revolution. When I went, my friend and I were the only non-Chinese in the theater.

A sprawling story taking place during and after the Cultural Revolution in China mainly following three characters of a theatre troupe (Liu Feng, He Xiaoping, Suizi).

The film does not directly condemn nor does it fully praise this tumultuous dark time in Chinese history. Instead, as the title intimates, the film focuses on the relationships between the young troupe members and the transition from youth to adulthood. In this way, this film reminds me of Jiang Wen's, "In the Heat of the Sun".

The scenes of the girls bullying the main character and new member, He Xiaoping, rang with such authenticity and personal pain. The stories of Suizi and Xiaoping's fathers that were "rehabilitated" are heartbreaking as well. This might be because these scenes may have come from author Yan Geling's personal experience (she was also a dancer in a performance troupe). I personally appreciated the female perspective, though the film's gaze is somewhat male, (director is Feng Xiaogang), it felt as if I was peeking behind the curtain of the women's locker room, not for perverted reasons, but to see another world of intrigue I'm unaware of.

The more epic scenes of war did not ring as true and seemed a bit overly patriotic too be honest. I wonder if the film did not have to go through Chinese censors how it might've been different.

Regardless, the film does not shy away from the failures of the Cultural Revolution and portrays the horrors of war vividly. Be careful, there are a lot of shaky camera, handheld, steadicam movements throughout the film, so if you get close seats, you're likely to get motion sick.

As the film ends, the tone of the film begins to regain it's authenticity particularly in the relationship between Liu Feng and Xiaoping. Their story is equally tragic yet hopeful and full of love. When Xiaoping finally asks Liu Feng her question, it's sweet and heartbreaking.

The film worships those young carefree days, at times too excessively with it's montages and emotional music, but at the same time it shows how much heartache is experienced during those times. That's part of the beauty of youth, that heightened sensitivity to the whole spectrum of emotion: love, anger, longing, hope. It may be why I'm also kinda over it.

Some middle sections of the film meandered and I felt could've been shortened. Overall, I enjoyed following the story of these youth and seeing the mishap of their relationships.

Side Note: Watching this film, I realized how alien this world was to me. Growing up in the U.S., I've also felt certain moments of this alienation when watching the movies here as an Asian American. This gives me further inspiration to pursue telling my own personal stories.

The directing, the acting of all the cast, the camera work...they all deserved an 8, because director Fong is still one of the better Chinese veteran directors who has been continuously gave us some more serious and more matured movies, unlike those ones who could only produce brain-dead farces which now seems to be the main stream Chinese movies titled themselves as "Comedy". If you looked at what Director Fong gave us in the past years, almost, I mean, most of them, were worth watching.

I've watched a documentary about how this film was made before viewing this film, about how Fong worked so hard to make this film more like what that pathetic era in China, a huge compound was built according to the old building structures, and how he painstakingly chose the new generation young actors to play those roles, and how he insisted them to live like those people in that era, to think like those old generation, he even insisted them to wear clothes inside out like those people in that era, he paid so much in details including how those young people really went through in a large group, lived, ate, trained and slept together, making these actors he signed up to be exactly like those people. This was a very very serious production under the insistence and persistence of Fong's movie ethics and philosophy, and indeed, he never gave way to any hardship and difficulty when tried to make this film. The preparation of making this film was about a year long, all the actors lived together with him, trained under his production experts. Yes, if by such point of view, this should deserve a high rating.

But if you look at this film from a different angle, it's completely on the opposite. Because it's an ideological propaganda film under the guidance and instruction of the Party. Because Fong and other more liberal directors were then pressured by the government to produce more political correct films instead of either commercial-wise or personal-wise films. The Party needed the young generation to learn something from the past, about how that generation was so obedient, how simple-minded, how easy and pure to be mouth-fed with the dogma of the Communism, how to follow the Party to anywhere and anytime when the Party required them to do, to think and to live. So Fong produced this film to please the Party and won the nods from the high-up Party leaders.

But Fong was also smart enough to use a flexible movie title to allow the viewers to develop freely with their imagination. "Fang Hua" in Chinese, means the best but short Youth, a duration when people is more creative, more passionate but at the same time, more naive to be fooled and brain washed. "Fang Hua" is part of a Chinese four words idiom, the other two words that hidden behind and follow Fang Hua is "Shu Du", i.e., "Completely Wasted". And indeed, if you look back to that ridiculous era and those 10-year long Culture Revolution, twenty millions Chinese were wasted, dead and buried; all the young people were forced to leave their homes and hometowns to the remote, deserted countryside, to the mountains, to the fields of wildness. Those short and the most precious years of human lives were completely wasted and could never get back or live it again. A generation, young and should be so promising, but totally lost. Fong somehow hoped that his viewers would have the least passion and realization of how precious the so-called "Youth" should be well supported, guided and tutored and should not be wasted like those young people in that era that this film portrayed. He did not just want to give you some nostalgia or melancholy deeply emotional and sentimental journey to the past, he also wanted you to realize how young people should not waste their precious but short period of their lives in vain and be fooled by the Party to willingly and unconsciously poisoned by such big foolish words like "Patriotism", "Unconditional Sacrifice for Your Motherland". So as I've pointed out in the very beginning, if from the ideological and political viewpoint, knowing this film was just for the purpose to please the Party, this film only deserved a 0.

" Youth " was a nice movie. The only thing that actually made me reduce my rating from nine to seven was the second half of the movie. Even though the start was really good, with a nice introduction of the characters and the setting where the events took place, the final half rushed things up. Especially when it came to the leading lady, with her story and take on the war, they just threw that "that is that from now on" and they didn't give a deeper look into it. Plus, the ending could have been better too, not about the actual ending, but the way they wrapped things up. That said, the performances were pretty good from everyone, especially when it came to the dancing scenes. So, overall, seven out of ten.

Youth is not a good translate of "Fang Hua". In Chinese, Fang sometimes not only means "young", but also means the pleasant scent of new growing lawn and flowers, and it is the first mean of "fang". "Hua" means beautiful and blooming. In fact the character "hua" is interchangeable with the flower in ancient Chinese tradition, but "hua" gives more meaning in describing young ladies.

We see "youth" is certainly not able to cover the full meaning of the movie. The movie is not about war, love or the time of culture revolution and etc. It is about how "young beautiful flowers" grow and what they have become at particular time of China. The protagonists are a group of youth at their age around 15. They are the very pure flowers. The theme is about change of the those "pure flowers" life while the country is facing a huge change. The movie is to recall and cherish.

Youth is the latest work by Xiaogang Feng, a well-known Chinese Director with many domestic box office success and ambitious effort to make serious movies. The screen play was written by the talented writer Geling Yan, whose life trajectory closely paralleled with the story line. Both Feng and Yan shared the experience of living and working in the Military Cultural Troupe, a special unit serving the Military with 'artful' performances but later largely disassembled as the Chinese society moved to market economy in 1980s. The majority of the stories in the movie occurred from mid-70s to early-80s, which marks a historically critical period of modern China and the youthful years of a generation who are around 60 years old now.

The well crafted production settings, costumes and makeups immediately reset the clock for 40 years and bring you to the late stage of Culture Revolution. The signature dance moves, songs, body gestures, and use of words strongly evoke one's memory of that time; such rich cultural message unfortunately may be lost to western audiences. The nostalgic sentiment has overpowered many (millions) Chinese viewers for sure. In a sense, it was the Age of Innocence when the youths were largely shielded from dating and selfish motives. However, as the plot developed, conflict arose, things got escalated and people's fate changed. The movie is unpolitical and intends to tell the story of a group of regular young people limited by their historical environment. Most of the female leads are new faces on screen, whose performance was refreshing and enjoyable.

Overall, the cinematography was done in a lively manner with nicely coordinated music scores. The movie was told from a young lady's perspective, thus may feel a bit on the feminine side for some. To me, it is beautifully done and quite an achievement.

For people who don't have similar cultural background, this movie is hard to relate to. This movie was sold out in my city ( Northeast in U.S.) every day. Everyone was crying when watching this movie. Tears came down to my face many times. Best Chinese movie in recent 10 years! Sometimes it is not about techniques, a good movie is supposed to touch people's souls, hearts and minds -- this movie did that to me. Go to the theater and watch this movie!

My first thought after viewing this film, is that is is quite nicely made. That's all, not much emotion felt, though it kept me thinking.

After browsing internet reviews, I realized I watched the censored version, cutting away key moments such as how Xiao Ping went mad, or a fuller picture of Liu Feng's arc. That's probably why when I was watching the film, it felt somewhat incompete, somewhat incoherent between sections.

Too bad that censorship exists. But that is not the only problem in this film.

As other reviews might have mentioned, the director seems to simply portray how nice the old days are, to present a fabricated nostalgia. That's why he hesitated in his portrayal of the nuances of the several characters. Bad things happen, but it's no one's fault. They can do no wrong, and there is no judgement.

There is bullying, but no consequences. Even when talking about how Liu Feng's kindness was exploited and not appreciated, it was deemed "tragic", but no further exploration of why that happened, no judgement on the other troupe members' attitude.

This lack of deeper exploration of each character's complexities and nuances made the characters lack depth. There was no contemplation of why things happened as such in that era. Even when speaking of the troupe's dissolvement, there is only a kind of nostalgia, but not further reflection of the troupe's nature, its purpose, how the decision was made, or so. When the narrator talked about how the era has changed, there was no exploration how that specific era (during cultural revolution) interacts with the opening-up era, which people's way of living faced a drastic change.

The film was made beautifully, but too sad that due to realistic constraints, it cannot be made into a more meaningful and complex film. And so it remains as such, a shallowly beautiful film.

In the Youth, you can listen and see: Brilliant revolutionary songs, passionate speech, red, rhubarb and green screen tone, green military uniform, green school bag, twist braid, Prairie female militia and Yi Mung Song the dances with a distinct characteristic of the times, the revolutionary slogan, Portrait of Chairman Mao, Quotations Chairman Mao. These are a lot of memorable memories for 50s, 60s and 70s audiences who feel familiar and cordial. For 80s, 90s and 00s, these audiences would feel that the good are not well rewarded and the bad are not punished.

The manifestation of sentient beings of the art troupe reflects the apparent social existence of the class or hierarchy, the marriage between families of equal social rank and the insidious side of complex human nature. Lin Ding Ting can be an example.

Lin Ding ding: heartless and egoistic individual

As a solo with a natural voice in the art troupe, Lin Ding Ting was sought after by male soldiers. She also understood how to seduce a good man among these suitors and get benefits from them. In the movie, Liu Feng, an army doctor and a military photography officer were secretly pursuing her. Lin Ding Ting was hugged by the army doctor and got painkillers easily from him, which was a shortage of drugs at that time. Lin Ding Ting was also hugged by the military photography officer and was photographed around by him when shooting outside. Therefore, she has her own exclusive photographer, carrying a camera with the beat. Moreover, she ate the can of food from him, which was rare in that time. When shooting target, Lin Ding Ting muzzled at the military photography officer, almost causing accidental injury. At that time, there were clashes between two pursuers, Liu Feng and the military photography officer. Liu Feng accused the officer that the position was wrong. And the officer suspected Liu Feng too dull. This thing proved that both were jealous of each other.

Like all the female soldiers in the art troupe, Lin Ding Ting, who was sophisticated and beautiful, enjoyed Liu Feng's help, care and ambiguity. But Liu Feng and Lin Ding Ting, a combination of carpenter's son and artist's daughter, cannot catch on due to no equal in social status. However, in Liu Feng's mind, as the most beautiful man as the Lei Feng-style in the art troupe, he could deserve the most beautiful goddess of the whole unit. It's a stupid idea! When the only time Liu Feng summoned the courage to show Lin Ding Ting the love and touch her, she has no obvious rejection tantalizing passivity, as if she had been flirting with the army doctor or the military photography officer. Usually at that time, Lin Ding Ting could not only enjoy the pleasure of being loved by everyone, but also refused to give a clear and definite answer. When Liu Feng hugged her, she showed no fierce resistance or conflict. Unfortunately, the time when Liu Feng hugged Lin Ding was caught by two other comrades. After being seen, Lin Ding Ting is more like a panic. It was not because of Liu Feng's embrace, but because Lin Ding Ting was afraid that she would be put on the wrong side of the hat, fearing that his reputation would be destroyed. So when she returned to her bedroom, she would cry so badly. Lin Ding Ting sobbed: Anyone can, but Liu Feng can't, because who let him be a living Lei Feng! She concocted a lot of imaginary things and created plenty of nonsense. Later, she took the initiative to find the leader in the art troupe. And then, Liu Feng was portrayed by Lin Ding Ting as a creepy man who wanted to solve her underwear buttons. The tragedy began. A living lei Feng would instantly become a rogue vigilante.

Lin Ding ding's dream was to marry into a good family. How could she have seen much in a Lei Feng who just knew only to help others? She knew exactly what it meant to Liu Feng, but it didn't matter in her own future. Lin Ding Ting deemed that her reputation could not be destroyed. Therefore, she did not hesitate to destroy Liu Feng's future to save herself.

This kind of girls is good at observing changes in the environment and knows when to make what decision. Once deciding, they go to action. Therefore, after the art troupe disbanded, Lin Ding Ting was no hesitation in deciding to marry abroad. She must have married an overseas Chinese who had never met before and was only a blind date.

As a matter of fact, people like Lin Ding Ting are more common in reality. They look harmless on the surface, but inside they are essentially self-serving people. They always have clear goals in mind. Do not care about the process, only care about the results. To achieve their own purpose, they can do nothing. To maximize their interests, they can abandon all principles. Therefore, if you meet someone like Lin Ding Ting, be sure to guard against them!

Exaggerate. Maybe the homemade film is so bad that the ordinary film is praised. Cover, branches, leaves, scattered.

The editing of "Youth" is the worst I've ever seen. It seems to me that the whole movie is divided into different parts, and these parts have essentially no relations and express completely disparate themes. The first hour exposes some hypercritical persons in the Military Cultural Troupe, most notably Lin Dingding. The second hour basically states that people still like the Military Cultural Troupe even after they leave it. The most memorable scene is the dance of He Xiaoping after she goes mad. The last part is set in the 1990s and describes the miserable life of Liu Feng.

Moreover, there are just quite a few plot holes and the character development fails to a large extent. For instance, nobody understands why He Xiaoping suddenly goes mad. Some actors are simply not professional, and performed rather awkwardly.

In a nutshell, I think the director may be somehow ambitious, but lack the corresponding storytelling and editing skills to achieve his goals.

I feel that this story is awfully idealized and romanticized and the characters' behaviour carefully curated. There's no way they would be this "pure" as the Asians like to say. Very fit, strong and attractive young men and women thrown together for years and barely any innuendo or liaison, all acting so cute and coy. Even the bullies are mild compared to the stories you hear about hazing.

I also feel this was designed for the box-office and probably made a killing. It's actually done well, but too clean and drawn out and aiming to cover so much scope. I was monitoring the progress bar and I felt the length. It got better for me in the last hour let's say when things get more serious. The war scenes are brutal and the outcomes horrific. When real life comes for our heroes things get serious. And I shed a few tears for Liu Feng and He Xiaoping. These two go through a lot. I guess the melodrama works much better than the slice of life part in the beginning, which I cannot believe for that era of China's history. I'm pretty sure they did not lead such happy and carefree lives in those times. The only hint at hardships is the fact that some of their fathers were political prisoners serving lengthy sentences. And tbh Liu Feng's punishment for that hug was unbelievably harsh. Dingding you jerk... Suizi is too kind to you.

Might have worked better for me a few years ago or even in a different mood but I've seen too many Chinese movies about the post-cultural revolution years to buy into this pretty picture.

This was a beautiful movie. While i didn't have any previous knowledge of the topics in this movie, I still felt connected to it. I felt as if many of the struggles of the characters are similar to struggles that people in the US have faced.

This was a very timely movie for me. Even though I'm not in the active military, I could related, to some extent, to the internal, emotional hardships of the characters. For example, A big theme of the movie is the struggle of transitioning from the innocence of an adolescent mindset to the mindset of an adult that begins to understand the sorrows, travesties, and desires of the world.

Throughout the movie, I found myself thinking of times where my own worldview has been shaped, molded, and refined. It makes the world feel a little smaller and more cohesive when you realize that human emotions are universal, and that people from all over the world, with many different beliefs, lifestyles, and motivations, feel anger, love, and disappointment all the same.

I have to admit that I was guilty of not watching this film when it was released for a reason which I regret today! I thought it was just a military propaganda film made to glorify the PLA through pleasant music and dancing... and how far I was from the truth!

Xiaogang Feng is a well-known Chinese director, so when he had such an extraordinary screenplay written by Geling Yan, it was impossible to make anything else than masterpiece! Their lives are connected to this story, they personally experienced some of the events in this film! Both Feng and Yan were living and working in the Military Cultural Troupe, a special unit serving the Military with 'artful' performances but later largely disassembled as the Coca Cola signs were erected around the country in the 1980's.

It was a real joy to see the results of a team where everyone is the best in their "trade": perfectly crafted production settings, costumes and makeups, signature dance moves, songs, body gestures, and use of words strongly evoke one's memory of that time - but this rich cultural message, unfortunately, may be lost to western audiences, because they would lack the nostalgic sentiment which has overpowered many Chinese viewers. The Age of Innocence when the youths were largely shielded from dating and selfish motives, is something Chinese people of my generation remember well (by the way I do not have Chinese background). In Australia, USA or in Europe conditions were completely different at that time, so this feels like a time capsule of a unique culture lost forever!

It is amazing how unpolitical this film is, regardless the production being fully paid by the army! A story of group of ordinary young people was told with such a passion that you have to feel them even when you don't understand them! Thanks to Xuan Huang and Miao Miao, this went even step further - acting was superb to a degree that everything looked real!

Just watch it if you are craving for a masterpiece - words cannot do justice to this cinematography!

Beautiful period drama about the innocence of youth during china's cultural revolution within a musical troupe of dancers and performers.

Unfortunately the film was edited because of chinese censorship and therefore the full length of the film was only shown in Canada as an early screening. Too bad the full length never got out on blu ray. And too bad that the scene where they perfomed for the soldiers on top of mountain was cut short can only be seen in trailers today.

Youth contains all the regular super-production resources: budget, the audience (China at least), cinematography, music, plot and well-done production. Could seem propaganda (as other American or European movies at their moment), however if we focus on the quality and audience impact, Youth is a remarkable first Chinese production (in years) that catch both the attention and feelings of the audiences.

In my opinion the movie that open the gate to many more Chinese superproductions. Which is normal when a country becomes to be a superpower.