Please Vote for Me

This can't be a documentary, as another reviewer already said. For starters, there are many "intimate" moments caught on tape in the most unrealistic way (e.g., a kid telling his machiavellic plans to destroy another candidate's reputation - all steps of his planning and executing are recorded), the camera shoots sometimes at angles that would be impossible to shoot without the cameraman looking really awkward, the characters fit perfectly well into their roles in the plot (which is odd for a documentary), etc., so this casts serious doubts on whether many of the film's good points are real or fake.

But as a fiction, is it interesting? Well, more or less, because the main interest in the film is to catch a glimpse at contemporary China, and a fiction destroys this unbiased objective. The film rather reinforces some stereotypes and doesn't show anything new. The novelty would be that the problems of western elections can also happen in China, but this is discarded if the film is a fiction.

As a 25 year old westerner I feel really bad for the sibling-less kids of China post 1979; such an intense, strict and oh so serious upbringing! But it was good to see these kids still know how to have a bit of fun some of the time - alternating between deliberately making people cry - to dancing about like a crazy loon.

After finishing watching this just now, my first thought was "who produced this?" was it the Chinese government trying to show democracy as a bad/flawed idea, or pro-westerners trying to say "yeah man, you DO need democracy now!"....

in the end it doesn't really matter as the film can equally discount or credit either argument.

It is a surprisingly honest and intimate doco; quite cleanly played out (not editorialized). Just like in most elections, the good guy you hope and would really love to see win; gets done over by the political machinations of the more cut=throat dodgier candidate - as is sadly too often the case in real world politics.

Make a bet with whoever you watch this with in the first 20 minutes as to who you think will win, you might be surprised!

This had me from the first minute until the last credits rolled, good film, nuff said.

Many people don't realize there are village and town level elections in China. I'm fairly certain at least over 90% if not all of the villages and towns have leaders democratically elected. (Note: the government usually don't pick the candidates, but voting fraud happen from time to time from what I heard. Yes, this is what happens when there's a democracy without proper voter education and regulations, most importantly, without a real voting culture. people just buy votes.) Therefore I have no reason to question the authenticity of this documentary. Common, it's an election between three third graders.If you think Chinese government care enough to stage this documentary you are most definitely paranoid.

This documentary itself actually made cases for both pro-democracy and anti-democracy arguments. On one hand, it's scary to have uneducated voters and unregulated voting process in a democracy; on another hand, without real democracy, the imitation can only be so crude and cruel.

The doc was filmed in my hometown, and the first thing I noticed is how crappy those kids, teachers and their parents' mandarin sounds:). We never really speak mandarin that often when I was in school, coz it is so uncool. Things definitely changed since I was there, so should I say somethings changed. Chinese people never enjoyed the true democracy since 1949, and the school system we are having just reflects the real society. This class monitor thing is just another part in the dictatorship hierarchy, teachers picked the kids they like to monitor other classmates, and cool kids like me never really care who will be the guy to monitor us coz we will fight the stupid system anyway. Why bother to introduce a democratic system to elect a little dictator anyway. Kids are so keen to get the job coz the power it represents. Parents are so keen to help their kids to win coz they know it will give them bonus at the time they graduate. For teachers, I have no idea, might be just extra fun at work... so anyway. China is never short of voting system, the problem is the government never wants people to understand the true democracy. I have the feeling that the director probably shares a similar feeling to me, which is sort of disappointment about these younger generation, which made me sad. By the way, I was elected as class monitor once in a quite similar way, but teacher refused to accept the result simply because he didn't like me and chose another kid. He said to us about his decision, "I trust you guys and give you the democratic rights, but look at the guy you chose, you are abusing your rights..." :)

"Please Vote For Me"

The documentary Please Vote For Me was made by Weijun Chen in 2007. This documentary was about a third grade class in China that was given the chance to learn how a democracy really works. The teacher of this class chose three students that would be competing to become the class monitor Cheng Cheng, Xiao Fei, and Luo Lei. Two boys and one girl were chosen as candidates and then told that they could pick two student supporters to help in their campaign. Throughout the film you are able to see the children's lives at home, during class, and while talking strategy with their parents. During the days before the actual election speeches were given on why they should be elected and why their opponent was unfit or too weak to fulfill the job. Also debates were held during class allowing the three to point out each other's flaws in front of an audience. It was interesting to see that through the whole process the children's parents become more and more involved in their child's campaign. At some points the parents were even teaching their kids how to go about tearing others down and how to make the other kids drop out from the competition. In the end one of the little boys ended up being elected after showering the entire class with gifts provided by his father. This movie was an extremely intriguing film about how nine and ten year olds view the idea of democracy.

The major theme in this documentary was simply to portray how a third grader may see democracy, especially while being raised in a country like China.

Two of Weijun Chen's most famous works are Please Vote For Me (2007) and The Biggest Chinese Restaurant In The World (2008). The Biggest Chinese Restaurant In The World refers to the inside story of a five thousand seat Chinese restaurant called West Lake. West Lake is located in the Hunan province city of Changsha and is more noted for its extravagant shows that for the food it serves. This owner of this dynamic restaurant having well over three hundred chefs is Mrs. Qin Linzi. Chen may have had some other minor works, but these are his most famous.

The main subjects in Please Vote For Me were the three children nominated to run for class monitor. Some other important subjects were the families of each candidate and of course the other children within the class. The teacher also played a key role by giving all of the students the guidelines they would need for the project and explained how to go about being elected.

The type of editing that Chen used was very appealing because it wasn't from an interviewing standpoint. The final product shows you exactly how the kids and everyone else reacted to certain situations without any questioning period. This type of editing in Please Vote For Me gave a smooth, more realistic feeling to the piece. The cinematography of the piece was also very complementing. No major action in the film seemed planned out. The documentary came across simply as whatever happens, happens. The unplanned attitude was most noticeable in parts where the kids said certain things to their parents and fellow students.

The music wasn't really an issue in this particular documentary because no music had been chosen. If Chen had decided to include some type of music I think a fun, techno mix might have been a good fit.

The part within the film that was so surprising to me was how involved the parents became in their child's campaign. Sometimes it seemed as though the children were acting more like adults than the actual parents. The documentary Please Vote For Me was a true pleasure to watch and I would recommend it to anyone.