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Review: Better Days (少年的你) (2019)
I had heard good things about this movie and I ended up enjoying it! Like many Chinese movies, this one does have a moral stance, particularly on bullying and justice. However, the relationship between the characters was able to draw my attention away from what might otherwise have been an overbearing message, and gave the story a more human touch. This was a good drama movie.
Spoilers.
Story
Chen Nian was a high schooler preparing for the gaokao, the Chinese college entrance exams. At the beginning of the movie, Hu Xiaodie, a classmate, committed suicide. Soon after, Chen Nian started being targeted by a group of bullies, headed by Wei Lai. This was likely because she had shown sympathy to Hu Xiaodie’s body, covering it with a jacket to avoid mocking eyes. Over the course of flashbacks, we find out that Hu Xiaodie was bullied by Wei Lai. She had pleaded for help, but Chen Nian and others hadn’t done anything.
One night while walking home from school, Chen Nian passed by a group of thugs beating another guy. She called the police but was dragged in. She was forced to kiss the victim, for the thugs’ entertainment. The victim was able to fight back, and the two parted ways. Later on, the victim, Xiaobei, approached Chen Nian to repay her for her help, though it was obvious they were from two very different worlds. After a particularly cruel day of bullying, Xiaobei passed by Chen Nian, and she went to his home.
Chen Nian eventually buckled from the bullying and reported it to Officer Zheng, resulting in the suspension of the bullies. The bullies tried to exact revenge, attacking Chen Nian at her house. She hid in a trash disposal. One of the bullies figured out she was there as her phone had rung, but let her go, likely due to some sympathy. Chen Nian then went to Xiaobei, asking for the protection he had offered.
Thus, Xiaobei would begin accompanying her to and from school from a few steps away. Unbeknownst to Chen Nian, Xiaobei also threatened Wei Lai to leave Chen Nian alone. The two grew closer during this time.
One day, Xiaobei was stuck at the police station so Chen Nian was without protection. Wei Lai and her posse bullied Chen Nian, shaving her, stripping her, beating her, and filming it all, though Wei Lai realized that there were witnesses and cameras and fears for only a second. When Xiaobei returned home, he saw a beaten and shaven Chen Nian tearfully taping her notes together and flew into a rage, though Chen Nian stopped him from leaving and doing anything rash. He helped shaved her head, and shaved his own too in solidarity.
On the first day of the exam, a body was found in a construction zone, which was found to be Wei Lai’s corpse. The police found out about the bullying video and thus cornered Chen Nian as their top suspect. Zheng Yi was always sympathetic to Chen Nian and let her go, knowing that she was in the middle of her exams, though the police had her tailed. While being tailed, Chen Nian was pulled aside by Xiaobei, who told her that he would take the blame for the murder, so that she could go on to university and do great things. Chen Nian reluctantly agreed.
It was revealed that Wei Lai had approached Chen Nian begging her not to report the bullying video to the police because she didn’t want to redo her college exams. Chen Nian just told Wei Lai to stay out of her way. However, Wei Lai pushed the matter, and told Chen Nian that they could actually be friends and that she actually thought Chen Nian was quite cool. In a fit of rage, Chen Nian pushed Wei Lei. I’m guessing this was set in Chongqing due to all of the stairs and mountains, and Wei Lai took a tumble, hitting her head and dying. It’s assumed that Xiaobei heled her hide the body.
Zheng Yi knew that the two were up to something and tried to get them to confess because it would get both of them a lighter sentence (as opposed to Xiaobei taking all of the blame and getting a longer sentence). But even when he pulled them together, Chen Nian and Xiaobei would not admit to anything.
Chen Nian earned a very high score in the exams. Zheng Yi came to congratulate her and also told her that Xiaobei had received the death penalty, as he had lied about being a minor. Chen Nian broke, and Zheng Yi admitted that he had lied to get Chen Nian to confess, so that they could both have a lighter sentence. Chen Nian and Xiaobei saw each other once more before they went off to jail. They appeared to be having a conversation on their way to prison, but they were actually in separate cars. So I think the conversations was meant to show the understanding they’d come to, that they still remained on good terms with each other and they were both stronger for having met each other.
In a time skip, the same scene that we saw at the beginning of the movie, Chen Nian was teaching English at a school. She noticed that one of her students was very down and she approached her and walked with her. From a roadside camera, we saw that Xiaobei was walking a few steps behind, as he always was.
So if we step back, this story is very obviously about how bullying is bad, and on a separate note, that we should respect the justice system. I will say there is a bit of a disconnect between these two themes because part of bullying discussion as on how Chen Nian and Xiaobei could never rely on the adults in their lives.
But all of that was pushed to the background as I found Chen Nian and Xiaobei’s relationship to be the most touching and the highlight of the movie. Two lonely people reaching out and giving each other a sense of comfort that they’ve never felt in the world. Chen Nian was alone in being bullied. She couldn’t tell her mom, but Xiaobei at least understood the kind of bullying that happened with people their age. Xiaobei was abandoned for much of his life, abused by the only family he had in this world who wished he didn’t exist so that she could have a better life. And yet Chen Nian was the only one who ever asked him if his wounds hurt. Yes, it’s very simple. But that’s how it happened. People are so afraid to reach out to each other, and even Chen Nian admits this of herself. But it’s by breaking this cycle of indifference that she finally accomplishes things. She didn’t help Hu Xiaodie when she was bullied which resulted in her feeling very depressed and suicidal. But when she saw Xiaobei being beaten, she called the police which resulted in them meeting each other. And later as an adult, she reached out to the student in hopes that she could help.
Overall, a pretty simple story, but I think it worked partly because of execution.
Production
I didn’t know that the director was Eric Tsang’s son. Anyway, I liked his direction style. First of all, I liked that he mixed genres so well. I didn’t even realize this was a crime movie because I was so distracted by the characters. Instead of focusing on the who, the how, I was just so intrigued by the characters because it was through them that we found everything out. We weren’t explicitly told how the crime panned out, it came in flashbacks as the characters reflected on their emotions. I really enjoyed those flashbacks by the way. I appreciated how Tsang was able to toe the line between telling us enough but also leaving it abstract enough so that we would focus on the emotions.
I think the chemistry between Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee was really good. I was so taken with how it developed. You can probably tell how big a fan I am of the young romance in this movie. Maybe it’s a bit melodramatic for some, but it was perfect for me.
Characters
Chen Nian
Chen Nian was our main character, a gaokao student. Like many others, she was very stressed. She didn’t come from the best family background. Her mother seemed to be running a shady facial business whose products were of questionable quality. However, she was at least able to go on undetected. That was until Hu Xiaodie committed suicide, and Chen Nian tried to do something nice by giving her body some respect. That put a target on her back, as Wei Lai and her posse started to target her. We realized that Chen Nian’s body language around Wei Lai was very uncomfortable at school, but it was in the evening that we saw Wei Lai and her gang beating Chen Nian. The bullying grew from physical assault to humiliating her mother, putting up posters saying rude things and calling her mother a scammer.
Chen Nian kept to herself. Even when Hu Xiaodie reached out, she didn’t do anything. But when she saw Xiaobei being beat up, she called the police. That was a break in her normal personality. She would have gone on with her life, if Xiaobei hadn’t approached her, wanting to make things right. Being that she was a proper young woman and he was a punk, there were obviously rough patches when they first got to know each other. Xiaobei felt that Chen Nian looked down on him, and I think she realized that she was unfair for doing so, especially when she sought his help after a particularly bad day of bullying.
I think after she started getting to know Xiaobei, she had to reset herself. She had to treat Xiaobei like an equal, but that also meant treating everyone else like an equal. She admitted that she had liked Hu Xiaodie and wouldn’t have minded being friends. It was cowardice that prevented her from reaching out. But I think she also started to think of her bullies a bit differently. Yes, she was fearful of them, but I think she also started to see them as humans.
After Xiaobei started to being her bodyguard, Wei Lai left her alone (for a bit) and instead targeted one of the girls that used to bully Chen Nian. That girl asked for protection too. Chen Nian offered to walk home with her. Maybe it was thanks for not leading the bullies straight to her that time they went to her home with rats and box cutters. But I don’t think Chen Nian was thinking of that. I think she was just thinking about how that girl was scared out of her mind, just like Hu Xiaodie, just like Chen Nian was.
Calling the cops on the bullies did also knock them down a peg, and allowed Chen Nian to focus on her studies. I do also think having Xiaobei back her up gave her confidence. Not just in the sense that he protected her, but also that he showed her that she was a person who didn’t deserve to be hurt like that by the bullies. After that bullying session that was recorded, Xiaobei was enraged and he wanted to seek revenge, but Chen Nian stopped him. She obviously didn’t want him to get in trouble.
Now that I’m writing about her, I don’t think Chen Nian is particularly resolute, and that’s because she’s a teenager. She’s still figuring things out. She’s in a period of immense change, that’s come with meeting someone who genuinely cares for her. So she flip flops a bit. But it doesn’t bother me that much because some things are consistent, which are that she believes going to a good university will improve life for her and her mother, that she just wants to stay out of the eye of the bullies, and that she cares for Xiaobei.
Xiaobei asking Chen Nian to let him take the fall was very tough. She did keep up the act, even when Zheng Yi pulled her into the interrogation with Xiaobei. And maybe it was seeing Xiaobei that gave her the strength to keep up the act. But when she found out that he was going to die, she broke. But it comes back to her morals that Xiaobei is a very important person to her, and she realizes that she wouldn’t mind bearing the burden with him, rather than giving it all to him. The movie is hopeful in that we see that she still has a good career after she grows up. Unfortunately I do think it’s a very optimistic way of looking at it as many will not have that fortune. But in the context of the story, I think we’re supposed to see that it was an accident that she paid for and was able to start over.
Sorry my thoughts are so jumbled. I think Chen Nian just reminds me of how being a teenager was like. You’re at the age where you’re learning to be an adult and you think you’ve started to figure things out. But you’re actually at a stage where you’re still figuring things out, only that your actions may dictate the rest of your life, which is why the gaokao is so stressful. You don’t even know what’s going on and you have to put your all into this exam that will set you up for life.
Chen Nian cares for her mom, but I think the relationship just stresses her out because she knows her mom is trying to earn for her, but that puts more pressure onto her. I think Xiaobei was one of the few people who saw her for her and not as a gaokao student. Even Hu Xiaodie saw her as a fellow student, and not as someone who was only as good as her accomplishments.
I think Zhou Dongyu was cast well for this role. I think she can be a hit or miss in her roles because she has a very youthful appearance, but she worked perfectly for this role not just because she is young looking, but also because Zhou Dongyu has that timid look.
Liu Beishan/Xiaobei
Xiaobei was a punk who was getting the shit beat out of him when Chen Nian tried to help. After the fight, he left, but he later approached her to thank her for helping. He helped her with her phone, revealing that he normally stole phones and sold them as his way of making a living. One day on her way back from school, Xiaobei took Chen Nian for a ride, which ended up being at his home. He was a bit flirty which bothered Chen Nian and they had a small fight.
However, after some tough bullying, Chen Nian turned to Xiaobei because she had nowhere to go. That was when Chen Nian took up on Xiaobei’s offer for his protection, though she had no money to give him. Why did Xiaobei agree? Probably because he liked the companionship. Maybe he liked the idea that Chen Nian found comfort and protection in someone like him, when he himself has never known what it’s like to have a stable home. Maybe he likes the stability of going with her to and from school, something he can do that has nothing to do with finding his next meal.
I think Xiaobei was right that Chen Nian used to look down on him. He would pass it off as saying that he was fine, he was used to being just a punk and things like academia and education were beyond him anyway. It wasn’t realistic for him to go back to school, but I think Chen Nian tried to involve him in more normal activities. Things like going to see fish tanks, going for rides, things that kept him out of trouble, where they could just talk and find solace in each other when they lived a world that had no mercy on teenagers.
But for Xiaobei, he didn’t see a future for himself the way Chen Nian did. She was a gaokao student, so she had a shot at becoming something big. He had no future other than a slight upgrade from what he was doing now, errands here and there. That was why he was willing to throw away what he had for Chen Nian. He felt that she was worth more than he was. At first, Chen Nian agreed (very hesitantly). Xiaobei’s plan almost worked. Even if Zheng Yi saw through them, he figured it’d be fine if neither of them spoke. But as mentioned, Chen Nian broke and decided to split the burden with him. While I think Xiaobei was shocked, I think it gave him solace that if Chen Nian was willing to bear the burden with him, maybe he was worth something too. I assume he didn’t stay a punk judging by his getup in the final scene of the movie. Which again, is very PSA-ish of the movie. But at least we get our happy ending lol.
Xiaobei was a victim of a severely broken family lie. He told Chen Nian that his mother beat him when he was 13 years old because her boyfriend didn’t like that she had a child and broke up with her. She saw Xiaobei as an obstacle to a better life for her. So he lived a very individual life with nothing to tether him. He had a couple of friends, other punks, but they lived the same life as him. Chen Nian was the first person he knew who lived a completely different life from him and it opened his eyes to more things in life, like the idea of having someone you cared about so much that you’d give anything to them, which was the opposite of how he’d ever felt as a child, abandoned and unwanted.
I assume that in the time skip, Xiaobei focused on building himself up so that he could be a person that Chen Nian could continue to rely on.
Zheng Yi
Zheng Yi was a police detective. He was first brought into the story as he was investigating Hu Xiaodie’s death. Right off the bat he could feel that Chen Nian knew more, and we later found out that she did, that Hu Xiaodie had actually reached out to her. He remained the contact on the case, so when Chen Nian wanted to report bullying, she got in contact with him. He saw that Wei Lai was bold because her parents never thought she was capable of such bad behaviour, so he understood why bullying was so tough to crack.
I forgot who said this, and I forgot the exact quote, but the gist of it was that when there was suspected bullying, the police would ask the principal, who would ask the teachers, who would ask the parents, who would then say they’d been working out of town for the past few months so they didn’t know anything about it. The idea was that it was hard to pin bullying on someone and no one would ever take responsibility. So the idea of bullying as a crime was left somewhat unresolved because of the imperfect justice system.
For Zheng Yi, he later focused on the death of Wei Lai. Because he had the background knowledge of the bullying at the school, he was more sympathetic to Chen Nian than his interrogation partner was. Chen Nian fought back in the interrogation with the partner, insinuating that she was the aggressor and that it was unfair that all of this was somehow her fault for being a victim of bullying.
Because Zheng Yi knew that the justice system was imperfect, he was just focused on helping the kids. So he wanted both kids to confess because the justice system would allow for lighter sentences for them both, as opposed to Xiaobei having to go to jail for decades. Which is a little contradictory, but I guess the point was that the justice system works in some ways but it’s still a work in progress in others.
I guess Zheng Yi was meant to represent the spirit of the law and how it attempts to help people, and that even when it doesn’t exactly do its job, you can hope that it works in other ways.
Zhou Lei
Zhou Lei was Chen Nian’s mom. She seemed to run a kind of shoddy beauty salon and was constantly being pursued for debts. Chen Nian kind of put up with it, though on occasion she’d be very frustrated. The bullies put up defamatory posters humiliating Chen Nian’s mom. Those posters were also sent around on social media which were very hurtful.
Zhou Lei was kind of out of the story for much of the latter half. It appeared that she was focused on working and perhaps barely went home, so that was also how Chen Nian spent so much time with Xiaobei. At the end of the movie when Chen Nian’s results were released, Zhou Lei was very happy, and said that it was deserved because they were good people, which Chen Nian faltered a bit at because she knew she wasn’t a good person, when she’d accidentally killed someone.
I think Zhou Lei is an example of a parent who is stretched too thin. She had good intentions but the fact that she was so focused on making money also put pressure on Chen Nian to be a good student or else she would feel like she was wasting her mom’s money and effort. However, because of this absent parenting, Chen Nian like many other kids were left to their own devices. For Chen Nian, she had to learn to fend for herself, eventually going to Xiaobei instead of an adult. For some others, they would join the ranks of the bullies to protect themselves. This is why kids don’t trust adults to help them, because parents have so much on their own plates. As well, kids at this time are learning about how to be adults, and feel like society is telling them that they should already be ready to be adults.
Zhou Lei being happy about her daughter’s grades also felt a bit dismissive of all of the harshness that her daughter went through. Did her mom know she was being bullied at all? Probably not, because she was so busy at work. Chen Nian loved her mom, but her mom was not the best support.
Wei Lai
Wei Lai was the main bully. First she targeted Hu Xiaodie, then she turned to Chen Nian, and then she turned on one of the fellow bullies. She was confident, especially because her parents never thought that she was a bad child. They were so sure that their child was the best and the brightest, which was why it was so frustrating to interrogate her and her parents.
The other bullies would buckle under pressure. We saw that for one of them, their parents beat them when they found out they’d been bullying others at school. It’s probably a cycle in that the girl was being beaten at home and she wanted to bully others to feel some control. But that was no the case for Wei Lai. It seemed like her parents were a bit more well-off. Perhaps bullying was Wei Lai’s way to maintain the feeling of superiority over others at the school.
Wei Lai faltered slightly when Zheng Yi first interrogated her. But the only other time we saw her hesitate was when Xiaobei was stuck at the police station and Chen Nian was beaten and stripped and shaved in the alleyway. One of the nearby residents had yelled at them for being noisy, and then Wei Lai noticed a street camera staring at them. What came of that? Nothing did. Wei Lai went to beg Chen Nian to not report her to the police telling her she’d give everything. Why didn’t the police already have the video footage? They only found out about it in the interrogations after Wei Lai’s death.
Speaking of which, Wei Lai’s confrontation with Chen Nian was very uncomfortable. She pleaded when Chen Nian, saying she’d give everything, but Chen Nian just told her to stay away. However, Wei Lai then took the perceived indifference to mean that they were now friends, and then she talked ill of the other two bullies, saying that she always knew Chen Nian was better than them. Wei Lai called one of the other girls two-faced, but Wei Lai switched sides the easiest and the most. Why did she do that? I guess for optics. She only did that because she wanted Chen Nian to feel at ease with her so that she wouldn’t report Wei Lai. Wei Lai seemed to have a very superficial idea of friendship. People who bully together, stay together. She would join forces with Chen Nian and bully people together. That was her idea of friendship, probably.
Wei Lai was a bit exaggerated in her villainy, but I guess she was supposed to be a placeholder for all of the combined bullying efforts because in reality, there are probably multiple pressures on each victim.
Themes
Bullying
Of course, bullying was the biggest theme, as that was Chen Nian’s biggest issue. It was something she could ignore when she was not the target of it, but she only truly sympathized with Hu Xiaodie when Chen Nian became the target.
Several times through the movie, the police told Chen Nian that she should have reported the bullying to adults or the police. But the truth was that children had no trust in adults to solve this for them. As mentioned, there was that quote about how hard it was to find an adult who would take responsibility for the bullying. The principals, the teacher, the parents would all feign ignorance in different ways. Not once in this movie had police ever shown that they could handle bullying either. In the end, it was Xiaobei who helped Chen Nian with warding off the bullies. In fact, reporting the bullying and having the bullies suspended exacerbated the bullying to a more extreme level of violence.
Bullying was a cycle. Some students were probably abused at home, and bullying at school gave them a sense of control. Similarly with Xiaobei, who experienced violence at home, and really only knew how to act with his fists.
At the same time, there were some bullies for whom bullying was simply for them to exert what they felt was their right. It looked like Wei Lai came from a more well-off family, she had nicer clothes. But she was stuck at this school with these normal people all working for the same thing, so maybe bullying was her way of feeling the superiority she thought she was owed. Let’s not forget that at first, Chen Nian also looked down on Xiaobei, who came from a worse background than she did. It took her time to see her wrongs and that she had overlooked people like Xiaobei all along.
Speaking of cycles, I noted that Chen Nian breaking out of her cycle was how she was able to accomplish things. Befriending Xiaobei only came because she had broken her cycle and reached out and helped. And at the end of the movie, she decided she would reach out and not just limit herself to her education career. She decided to reach out to the student in the ways she wished that adults would when she was young.
Intelligence
This is a vaguer theme so bear with me. Academic pressure is understandably huge on these teenagers. Their futures rely on these test scores. It seems to me that the hierarchy of universities is prevalent in China, so getting into the best universities was of utmost importance. I was so stressed just picking my career in high school, I can’t imagine the pressure of college entrance exams at that age too. But I think as a result of that pressure, some students act out which again leads back to bullying. I remember I definitely exhibited some behaviours I was not proud of when I was very stressed preparing for exams. I was very irritable. I can see that playing out in bullying and violence for some people, and depression and suicide for others.
While Chen Nian was book smart, Xiaobei saw her as naïve as she had less real world experience as he did. Chen Nian believed in the goodness of the world, that good things could happen to good people. But Xiaobei believed in a very dog-eat-dog world where everyone had to fend for themselves. He thought Chen Nian was naïve for associating with him so closely because he knew that it wasn’t a good look for someone like her who had a good future ahead of her. But in the end, Chen Nian’s naivete won out, and the justice system worked its magic so that both of them could start their lives over again after their release from prison.
Morality
Do good people really end up getting what they deserve? The movie wanted to express that, especially at the end of the movie with Chen Nian and Xiaobei able to restart their lives anew. But how about all the victims like Hu Xiaodie? What did she do to deserve bullying other than existing? Chen Nian wasn’t granted good grades. Of course she studied, but she had to go out and find protection on her own. People aren’t owed goodness by being good, unfortunately. And this is one of those parts of the movie that had a disconnect between the details and the larger picture. I guess the more realistic takeaway, particularly with the information cards at the end of the movie, was that we want to move towards a position where the justice system will reflect morality as closely as possible.
Overall
Not a perfect movie, which I realized as I was writing. But as I said, the relationship between the characters was so moving and it was the star of the show for me. I admit the bullying was very rage inducing which was maybe the point. The movie also left us hanging a bit with the way that bullying was an unresolved issue and that some of the details didn’t connect with the bigger message very well. But perhaps we can be influenced to try to work towards a better world.
Spoilers.
Story
Chen Nian was a high schooler preparing for the gaokao, the Chinese college entrance exams. At the beginning of the movie, Hu Xiaodie, a classmate, committed suicide. Soon after, Chen Nian started being targeted by a group of bullies, headed by Wei Lai. This was likely because she had shown sympathy to Hu Xiaodie’s body, covering it with a jacket to avoid mocking eyes. Over the course of flashbacks, we find out that Hu Xiaodie was bullied by Wei Lai. She had pleaded for help, but Chen Nian and others hadn’t done anything.
One night while walking home from school, Chen Nian passed by a group of thugs beating another guy. She called the police but was dragged in. She was forced to kiss the victim, for the thugs’ entertainment. The victim was able to fight back, and the two parted ways. Later on, the victim, Xiaobei, approached Chen Nian to repay her for her help, though it was obvious they were from two very different worlds. After a particularly cruel day of bullying, Xiaobei passed by Chen Nian, and she went to his home.
Chen Nian eventually buckled from the bullying and reported it to Officer Zheng, resulting in the suspension of the bullies. The bullies tried to exact revenge, attacking Chen Nian at her house. She hid in a trash disposal. One of the bullies figured out she was there as her phone had rung, but let her go, likely due to some sympathy. Chen Nian then went to Xiaobei, asking for the protection he had offered.
Thus, Xiaobei would begin accompanying her to and from school from a few steps away. Unbeknownst to Chen Nian, Xiaobei also threatened Wei Lai to leave Chen Nian alone. The two grew closer during this time.
One day, Xiaobei was stuck at the police station so Chen Nian was without protection. Wei Lai and her posse bullied Chen Nian, shaving her, stripping her, beating her, and filming it all, though Wei Lai realized that there were witnesses and cameras and fears for only a second. When Xiaobei returned home, he saw a beaten and shaven Chen Nian tearfully taping her notes together and flew into a rage, though Chen Nian stopped him from leaving and doing anything rash. He helped shaved her head, and shaved his own too in solidarity.
On the first day of the exam, a body was found in a construction zone, which was found to be Wei Lai’s corpse. The police found out about the bullying video and thus cornered Chen Nian as their top suspect. Zheng Yi was always sympathetic to Chen Nian and let her go, knowing that she was in the middle of her exams, though the police had her tailed. While being tailed, Chen Nian was pulled aside by Xiaobei, who told her that he would take the blame for the murder, so that she could go on to university and do great things. Chen Nian reluctantly agreed.
It was revealed that Wei Lai had approached Chen Nian begging her not to report the bullying video to the police because she didn’t want to redo her college exams. Chen Nian just told Wei Lai to stay out of her way. However, Wei Lai pushed the matter, and told Chen Nian that they could actually be friends and that she actually thought Chen Nian was quite cool. In a fit of rage, Chen Nian pushed Wei Lei. I’m guessing this was set in Chongqing due to all of the stairs and mountains, and Wei Lai took a tumble, hitting her head and dying. It’s assumed that Xiaobei heled her hide the body.
Zheng Yi knew that the two were up to something and tried to get them to confess because it would get both of them a lighter sentence (as opposed to Xiaobei taking all of the blame and getting a longer sentence). But even when he pulled them together, Chen Nian and Xiaobei would not admit to anything.
Chen Nian earned a very high score in the exams. Zheng Yi came to congratulate her and also told her that Xiaobei had received the death penalty, as he had lied about being a minor. Chen Nian broke, and Zheng Yi admitted that he had lied to get Chen Nian to confess, so that they could both have a lighter sentence. Chen Nian and Xiaobei saw each other once more before they went off to jail. They appeared to be having a conversation on their way to prison, but they were actually in separate cars. So I think the conversations was meant to show the understanding they’d come to, that they still remained on good terms with each other and they were both stronger for having met each other.
In a time skip, the same scene that we saw at the beginning of the movie, Chen Nian was teaching English at a school. She noticed that one of her students was very down and she approached her and walked with her. From a roadside camera, we saw that Xiaobei was walking a few steps behind, as he always was.
So if we step back, this story is very obviously about how bullying is bad, and on a separate note, that we should respect the justice system. I will say there is a bit of a disconnect between these two themes because part of bullying discussion as on how Chen Nian and Xiaobei could never rely on the adults in their lives.
But all of that was pushed to the background as I found Chen Nian and Xiaobei’s relationship to be the most touching and the highlight of the movie. Two lonely people reaching out and giving each other a sense of comfort that they’ve never felt in the world. Chen Nian was alone in being bullied. She couldn’t tell her mom, but Xiaobei at least understood the kind of bullying that happened with people their age. Xiaobei was abandoned for much of his life, abused by the only family he had in this world who wished he didn’t exist so that she could have a better life. And yet Chen Nian was the only one who ever asked him if his wounds hurt. Yes, it’s very simple. But that’s how it happened. People are so afraid to reach out to each other, and even Chen Nian admits this of herself. But it’s by breaking this cycle of indifference that she finally accomplishes things. She didn’t help Hu Xiaodie when she was bullied which resulted in her feeling very depressed and suicidal. But when she saw Xiaobei being beaten, she called the police which resulted in them meeting each other. And later as an adult, she reached out to the student in hopes that she could help.
Overall, a pretty simple story, but I think it worked partly because of execution.
Production
I didn’t know that the director was Eric Tsang’s son. Anyway, I liked his direction style. First of all, I liked that he mixed genres so well. I didn’t even realize this was a crime movie because I was so distracted by the characters. Instead of focusing on the who, the how, I was just so intrigued by the characters because it was through them that we found everything out. We weren’t explicitly told how the crime panned out, it came in flashbacks as the characters reflected on their emotions. I really enjoyed those flashbacks by the way. I appreciated how Tsang was able to toe the line between telling us enough but also leaving it abstract enough so that we would focus on the emotions.
I think the chemistry between Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee was really good. I was so taken with how it developed. You can probably tell how big a fan I am of the young romance in this movie. Maybe it’s a bit melodramatic for some, but it was perfect for me.
Characters
Chen Nian
Chen Nian was our main character, a gaokao student. Like many others, she was very stressed. She didn’t come from the best family background. Her mother seemed to be running a shady facial business whose products were of questionable quality. However, she was at least able to go on undetected. That was until Hu Xiaodie committed suicide, and Chen Nian tried to do something nice by giving her body some respect. That put a target on her back, as Wei Lai and her posse started to target her. We realized that Chen Nian’s body language around Wei Lai was very uncomfortable at school, but it was in the evening that we saw Wei Lai and her gang beating Chen Nian. The bullying grew from physical assault to humiliating her mother, putting up posters saying rude things and calling her mother a scammer.
Chen Nian kept to herself. Even when Hu Xiaodie reached out, she didn’t do anything. But when she saw Xiaobei being beat up, she called the police. That was a break in her normal personality. She would have gone on with her life, if Xiaobei hadn’t approached her, wanting to make things right. Being that she was a proper young woman and he was a punk, there were obviously rough patches when they first got to know each other. Xiaobei felt that Chen Nian looked down on him, and I think she realized that she was unfair for doing so, especially when she sought his help after a particularly bad day of bullying.
I think after she started getting to know Xiaobei, she had to reset herself. She had to treat Xiaobei like an equal, but that also meant treating everyone else like an equal. She admitted that she had liked Hu Xiaodie and wouldn’t have minded being friends. It was cowardice that prevented her from reaching out. But I think she also started to think of her bullies a bit differently. Yes, she was fearful of them, but I think she also started to see them as humans.
After Xiaobei started to being her bodyguard, Wei Lai left her alone (for a bit) and instead targeted one of the girls that used to bully Chen Nian. That girl asked for protection too. Chen Nian offered to walk home with her. Maybe it was thanks for not leading the bullies straight to her that time they went to her home with rats and box cutters. But I don’t think Chen Nian was thinking of that. I think she was just thinking about how that girl was scared out of her mind, just like Hu Xiaodie, just like Chen Nian was.
Calling the cops on the bullies did also knock them down a peg, and allowed Chen Nian to focus on her studies. I do also think having Xiaobei back her up gave her confidence. Not just in the sense that he protected her, but also that he showed her that she was a person who didn’t deserve to be hurt like that by the bullies. After that bullying session that was recorded, Xiaobei was enraged and he wanted to seek revenge, but Chen Nian stopped him. She obviously didn’t want him to get in trouble.
Now that I’m writing about her, I don’t think Chen Nian is particularly resolute, and that’s because she’s a teenager. She’s still figuring things out. She’s in a period of immense change, that’s come with meeting someone who genuinely cares for her. So she flip flops a bit. But it doesn’t bother me that much because some things are consistent, which are that she believes going to a good university will improve life for her and her mother, that she just wants to stay out of the eye of the bullies, and that she cares for Xiaobei.
Xiaobei asking Chen Nian to let him take the fall was very tough. She did keep up the act, even when Zheng Yi pulled her into the interrogation with Xiaobei. And maybe it was seeing Xiaobei that gave her the strength to keep up the act. But when she found out that he was going to die, she broke. But it comes back to her morals that Xiaobei is a very important person to her, and she realizes that she wouldn’t mind bearing the burden with him, rather than giving it all to him. The movie is hopeful in that we see that she still has a good career after she grows up. Unfortunately I do think it’s a very optimistic way of looking at it as many will not have that fortune. But in the context of the story, I think we’re supposed to see that it was an accident that she paid for and was able to start over.
Sorry my thoughts are so jumbled. I think Chen Nian just reminds me of how being a teenager was like. You’re at the age where you’re learning to be an adult and you think you’ve started to figure things out. But you’re actually at a stage where you’re still figuring things out, only that your actions may dictate the rest of your life, which is why the gaokao is so stressful. You don’t even know what’s going on and you have to put your all into this exam that will set you up for life.
Chen Nian cares for her mom, but I think the relationship just stresses her out because she knows her mom is trying to earn for her, but that puts more pressure onto her. I think Xiaobei was one of the few people who saw her for her and not as a gaokao student. Even Hu Xiaodie saw her as a fellow student, and not as someone who was only as good as her accomplishments.
I think Zhou Dongyu was cast well for this role. I think she can be a hit or miss in her roles because she has a very youthful appearance, but she worked perfectly for this role not just because she is young looking, but also because Zhou Dongyu has that timid look.
Liu Beishan/Xiaobei
Xiaobei was a punk who was getting the shit beat out of him when Chen Nian tried to help. After the fight, he left, but he later approached her to thank her for helping. He helped her with her phone, revealing that he normally stole phones and sold them as his way of making a living. One day on her way back from school, Xiaobei took Chen Nian for a ride, which ended up being at his home. He was a bit flirty which bothered Chen Nian and they had a small fight.
However, after some tough bullying, Chen Nian turned to Xiaobei because she had nowhere to go. That was when Chen Nian took up on Xiaobei’s offer for his protection, though she had no money to give him. Why did Xiaobei agree? Probably because he liked the companionship. Maybe he liked the idea that Chen Nian found comfort and protection in someone like him, when he himself has never known what it’s like to have a stable home. Maybe he likes the stability of going with her to and from school, something he can do that has nothing to do with finding his next meal.
I think Xiaobei was right that Chen Nian used to look down on him. He would pass it off as saying that he was fine, he was used to being just a punk and things like academia and education were beyond him anyway. It wasn’t realistic for him to go back to school, but I think Chen Nian tried to involve him in more normal activities. Things like going to see fish tanks, going for rides, things that kept him out of trouble, where they could just talk and find solace in each other when they lived a world that had no mercy on teenagers.
But for Xiaobei, he didn’t see a future for himself the way Chen Nian did. She was a gaokao student, so she had a shot at becoming something big. He had no future other than a slight upgrade from what he was doing now, errands here and there. That was why he was willing to throw away what he had for Chen Nian. He felt that she was worth more than he was. At first, Chen Nian agreed (very hesitantly). Xiaobei’s plan almost worked. Even if Zheng Yi saw through them, he figured it’d be fine if neither of them spoke. But as mentioned, Chen Nian broke and decided to split the burden with him. While I think Xiaobei was shocked, I think it gave him solace that if Chen Nian was willing to bear the burden with him, maybe he was worth something too. I assume he didn’t stay a punk judging by his getup in the final scene of the movie. Which again, is very PSA-ish of the movie. But at least we get our happy ending lol.
Xiaobei was a victim of a severely broken family lie. He told Chen Nian that his mother beat him when he was 13 years old because her boyfriend didn’t like that she had a child and broke up with her. She saw Xiaobei as an obstacle to a better life for her. So he lived a very individual life with nothing to tether him. He had a couple of friends, other punks, but they lived the same life as him. Chen Nian was the first person he knew who lived a completely different life from him and it opened his eyes to more things in life, like the idea of having someone you cared about so much that you’d give anything to them, which was the opposite of how he’d ever felt as a child, abandoned and unwanted.
I assume that in the time skip, Xiaobei focused on building himself up so that he could be a person that Chen Nian could continue to rely on.
Zheng Yi
Zheng Yi was a police detective. He was first brought into the story as he was investigating Hu Xiaodie’s death. Right off the bat he could feel that Chen Nian knew more, and we later found out that she did, that Hu Xiaodie had actually reached out to her. He remained the contact on the case, so when Chen Nian wanted to report bullying, she got in contact with him. He saw that Wei Lai was bold because her parents never thought she was capable of such bad behaviour, so he understood why bullying was so tough to crack.
I forgot who said this, and I forgot the exact quote, but the gist of it was that when there was suspected bullying, the police would ask the principal, who would ask the teachers, who would ask the parents, who would then say they’d been working out of town for the past few months so they didn’t know anything about it. The idea was that it was hard to pin bullying on someone and no one would ever take responsibility. So the idea of bullying as a crime was left somewhat unresolved because of the imperfect justice system.
For Zheng Yi, he later focused on the death of Wei Lai. Because he had the background knowledge of the bullying at the school, he was more sympathetic to Chen Nian than his interrogation partner was. Chen Nian fought back in the interrogation with the partner, insinuating that she was the aggressor and that it was unfair that all of this was somehow her fault for being a victim of bullying.
Because Zheng Yi knew that the justice system was imperfect, he was just focused on helping the kids. So he wanted both kids to confess because the justice system would allow for lighter sentences for them both, as opposed to Xiaobei having to go to jail for decades. Which is a little contradictory, but I guess the point was that the justice system works in some ways but it’s still a work in progress in others.
I guess Zheng Yi was meant to represent the spirit of the law and how it attempts to help people, and that even when it doesn’t exactly do its job, you can hope that it works in other ways.
Zhou Lei
Zhou Lei was Chen Nian’s mom. She seemed to run a kind of shoddy beauty salon and was constantly being pursued for debts. Chen Nian kind of put up with it, though on occasion she’d be very frustrated. The bullies put up defamatory posters humiliating Chen Nian’s mom. Those posters were also sent around on social media which were very hurtful.
Zhou Lei was kind of out of the story for much of the latter half. It appeared that she was focused on working and perhaps barely went home, so that was also how Chen Nian spent so much time with Xiaobei. At the end of the movie when Chen Nian’s results were released, Zhou Lei was very happy, and said that it was deserved because they were good people, which Chen Nian faltered a bit at because she knew she wasn’t a good person, when she’d accidentally killed someone.
I think Zhou Lei is an example of a parent who is stretched too thin. She had good intentions but the fact that she was so focused on making money also put pressure on Chen Nian to be a good student or else she would feel like she was wasting her mom’s money and effort. However, because of this absent parenting, Chen Nian like many other kids were left to their own devices. For Chen Nian, she had to learn to fend for herself, eventually going to Xiaobei instead of an adult. For some others, they would join the ranks of the bullies to protect themselves. This is why kids don’t trust adults to help them, because parents have so much on their own plates. As well, kids at this time are learning about how to be adults, and feel like society is telling them that they should already be ready to be adults.
Zhou Lei being happy about her daughter’s grades also felt a bit dismissive of all of the harshness that her daughter went through. Did her mom know she was being bullied at all? Probably not, because she was so busy at work. Chen Nian loved her mom, but her mom was not the best support.
Wei Lai
Wei Lai was the main bully. First she targeted Hu Xiaodie, then she turned to Chen Nian, and then she turned on one of the fellow bullies. She was confident, especially because her parents never thought that she was a bad child. They were so sure that their child was the best and the brightest, which was why it was so frustrating to interrogate her and her parents.
The other bullies would buckle under pressure. We saw that for one of them, their parents beat them when they found out they’d been bullying others at school. It’s probably a cycle in that the girl was being beaten at home and she wanted to bully others to feel some control. But that was no the case for Wei Lai. It seemed like her parents were a bit more well-off. Perhaps bullying was Wei Lai’s way to maintain the feeling of superiority over others at the school.
Wei Lai faltered slightly when Zheng Yi first interrogated her. But the only other time we saw her hesitate was when Xiaobei was stuck at the police station and Chen Nian was beaten and stripped and shaved in the alleyway. One of the nearby residents had yelled at them for being noisy, and then Wei Lai noticed a street camera staring at them. What came of that? Nothing did. Wei Lai went to beg Chen Nian to not report her to the police telling her she’d give everything. Why didn’t the police already have the video footage? They only found out about it in the interrogations after Wei Lai’s death.
Speaking of which, Wei Lai’s confrontation with Chen Nian was very uncomfortable. She pleaded when Chen Nian, saying she’d give everything, but Chen Nian just told her to stay away. However, Wei Lai then took the perceived indifference to mean that they were now friends, and then she talked ill of the other two bullies, saying that she always knew Chen Nian was better than them. Wei Lai called one of the other girls two-faced, but Wei Lai switched sides the easiest and the most. Why did she do that? I guess for optics. She only did that because she wanted Chen Nian to feel at ease with her so that she wouldn’t report Wei Lai. Wei Lai seemed to have a very superficial idea of friendship. People who bully together, stay together. She would join forces with Chen Nian and bully people together. That was her idea of friendship, probably.
Wei Lai was a bit exaggerated in her villainy, but I guess she was supposed to be a placeholder for all of the combined bullying efforts because in reality, there are probably multiple pressures on each victim.
Themes
Bullying
Of course, bullying was the biggest theme, as that was Chen Nian’s biggest issue. It was something she could ignore when she was not the target of it, but she only truly sympathized with Hu Xiaodie when Chen Nian became the target.
Several times through the movie, the police told Chen Nian that she should have reported the bullying to adults or the police. But the truth was that children had no trust in adults to solve this for them. As mentioned, there was that quote about how hard it was to find an adult who would take responsibility for the bullying. The principals, the teacher, the parents would all feign ignorance in different ways. Not once in this movie had police ever shown that they could handle bullying either. In the end, it was Xiaobei who helped Chen Nian with warding off the bullies. In fact, reporting the bullying and having the bullies suspended exacerbated the bullying to a more extreme level of violence.
Bullying was a cycle. Some students were probably abused at home, and bullying at school gave them a sense of control. Similarly with Xiaobei, who experienced violence at home, and really only knew how to act with his fists.
At the same time, there were some bullies for whom bullying was simply for them to exert what they felt was their right. It looked like Wei Lai came from a more well-off family, she had nicer clothes. But she was stuck at this school with these normal people all working for the same thing, so maybe bullying was her way of feeling the superiority she thought she was owed. Let’s not forget that at first, Chen Nian also looked down on Xiaobei, who came from a worse background than she did. It took her time to see her wrongs and that she had overlooked people like Xiaobei all along.
Speaking of cycles, I noted that Chen Nian breaking out of her cycle was how she was able to accomplish things. Befriending Xiaobei only came because she had broken her cycle and reached out and helped. And at the end of the movie, she decided she would reach out and not just limit herself to her education career. She decided to reach out to the student in the ways she wished that adults would when she was young.
Intelligence
This is a vaguer theme so bear with me. Academic pressure is understandably huge on these teenagers. Their futures rely on these test scores. It seems to me that the hierarchy of universities is prevalent in China, so getting into the best universities was of utmost importance. I was so stressed just picking my career in high school, I can’t imagine the pressure of college entrance exams at that age too. But I think as a result of that pressure, some students act out which again leads back to bullying. I remember I definitely exhibited some behaviours I was not proud of when I was very stressed preparing for exams. I was very irritable. I can see that playing out in bullying and violence for some people, and depression and suicide for others.
While Chen Nian was book smart, Xiaobei saw her as naïve as she had less real world experience as he did. Chen Nian believed in the goodness of the world, that good things could happen to good people. But Xiaobei believed in a very dog-eat-dog world where everyone had to fend for themselves. He thought Chen Nian was naïve for associating with him so closely because he knew that it wasn’t a good look for someone like her who had a good future ahead of her. But in the end, Chen Nian’s naivete won out, and the justice system worked its magic so that both of them could start their lives over again after their release from prison.
Morality
Do good people really end up getting what they deserve? The movie wanted to express that, especially at the end of the movie with Chen Nian and Xiaobei able to restart their lives anew. But how about all the victims like Hu Xiaodie? What did she do to deserve bullying other than existing? Chen Nian wasn’t granted good grades. Of course she studied, but she had to go out and find protection on her own. People aren’t owed goodness by being good, unfortunately. And this is one of those parts of the movie that had a disconnect between the details and the larger picture. I guess the more realistic takeaway, particularly with the information cards at the end of the movie, was that we want to move towards a position where the justice system will reflect morality as closely as possible.
Overall
Not a perfect movie, which I realized as I was writing. But as I said, the relationship between the characters was so moving and it was the star of the show for me. I admit the bullying was very rage inducing which was maybe the point. The movie also left us hanging a bit with the way that bullying was an unresolved issue and that some of the details didn’t connect with the bigger message very well. But perhaps we can be influenced to try to work towards a better world.