Tag: exams

If Only I Could Hibernate
(Baavgai Bolohson)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 April 2024
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(Baavgai Bolohson)
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Director – Zoljargal Purevdash – 2023 – Mongolia, France, Switzerland, Qatar – Cert. 12a– 96m

****

A gifted Mongolian boy is torn between providing for his siblings and pursuing his studies – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 19th

Teenager Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh) lives with his mum and his three younger siblings in the yurt district of Ulaanbaataar, Mongolia’s capital city, their father having long since disappeared. Mum (Ganchimeg Sandagdorj) is illiterate and struggles to find work, and there is much antagonism between her and Ulzii, who is going through the school system his mother never experienced and took money from his summer job to buy sneakers before giving the remainder to his mum, who needs it to buy coal for their yurt’s stove to keep the family warm in severe, subzero wintry conditions. Sometimes it’s all too much for their mum, who often gets drunk at night.

In class, Ulzii is the star pupil at physics, often completing complex equations using solutions his teacher wouldn’t expect from anyone less than two years older. His teacher (Batzorig Sukhbaatar), finding a prodigy on his hands, starts to coach him to do well in the National exams in order to win a free university scholarship to study physics, which the boy wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.… Read the rest

Tags alcoholism, Battsooj Uurtsaikh, Batzorig Sukhbaatar, bunk off school, capital city, chop up wood, city and countryside, coach, coaching, coal, complex equations, cut down trees, Davaasamba Sharaw, dependents, drinking, drunk, earning money, eldest child, exams, family, fuel, Ganchimeg Sandagdorj, gifted, heating, illegal job, illiterate, logger, Mongolia, mothers and children, National exams, Nominjiguur Tsend, physics, play truant, pregnant, prejudice, prodigy, pull out of the school, responsibility, scholarship, school, school system, schoolboy, seeking work, siblings, sneakers, star pupil, student, subzero, summer job, teacher, teaching, teenager, Tuguldur Batsaikhan, Ulaanbaataar, unemployment, university, university scholarship, Winter, yurt, yurt district, yurt’s stove, Zoljargal Purevdash

Features Live Action Movies

Mama’s Affair
(A Ma You Zuo
Di Er Ge,
阿媽有咗第二個)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 August 2022
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(A Ma You Zuo
Di Er Ge,
阿媽有咗第二個)
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Director – Kearen Pang – 2022 – Hong Kong – Cert. PG – 127m

A former music business exec tries to get back into the game managing a boy singer while her jealous teenage son takes his exams – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 19th

Essentially a three-hander, this centres around middle-aged mother Mei-fung (Teresa Mo Shun-kwan from Hard Boiled, John Woo, 1992; Over My Dead Body, Ho Cheuk Tin, 2022), her son, Jonathan (Jer Lau) who is doing exams and hopes to study at the UK’s Cambridge and similarly aged youth Fang Ching (Keung To). The two teenagers are played by members of phenomenally successful Cantopop boy band Mirror, arguably the production’s main selling point. It also has an unashamed music industry focus. Mei-fung, whose marriage is on the rocks, is a former record label executive who has decided to go back to the workplace now that her son is on the verge of going abroad.

She originally got out of the business at the insistence of her husband following a miscarriage. She was something of a workaholic, necessitated by her job of looking after talent, babysitting stars to the extent that juggling career and potential motherhood was well nigh impossible.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Better Days
(Shaonian De Ni,
少年的你)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 December 2020
No Comments on Better Days
(Shaonian De Ni,
少年的你)

Director – Derek Tsang – 2019 – China – 12A – 135m

***1/2

A bullied exam student is protected from her tormentors by and seeks solace in the company of a small time street criminal – from the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF), on now, and Hong Kong’s entry for the 2020/2021 Oscars

The combination of impending exams and bullying by her peers causes student Hu to throw herself off the rooftop of a school building. Feeling guilty because she never stood up for the girl, fellow student Chen Nian (Zhou Dongyu) covers the dead girl’s face to protect it from prying eyes and smartphone cameras. The next thing Chen knows, the late girl’s three bullies, led by the well-heeled and vindictive Wei Lai (Zhou Ye) have it in for her.

Not that Chen is having an easy time of it anyway. In the short term she’s being questioned by police about Hu’s death and like everyone else there’s the huge pressure of impending Gaokao university entrance exams, doing well in which is packaged in school rally chants as not failing the country or your parents. Her single parent mum (Wu Yue), beset with parental inadequacy as she tries to scrape a living from selling illegal goods away from home, has successfully convinced Chen that studying hard and getting excellent exam results is a way out of the poverty trap in which the family find themselves.… Read the rest