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.

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!

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.

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.

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.