City Monkey 玩酷青春

Story

Beijing, the present day. Parkour-mad He Zhipeng (Sheng Chao), 19, lives in a traditional courtyard house in Dongbiao hutong with his mother, laundry worker Luo Sufang (Lü Liping), and grandmother Bai Shuzhen (Li Bin), onetime member of Tianqiao Acrobatic Theatre. A member of parkour team City Monkeys, Zhipeng has been neglecting his studies for his forthcoming university entrance exams, much to the distress of his mother, who walked out on her husband 10 years ago and has been struggling to raise her son on her own ever since. When she's laid off at work, and then forbids Zhipeng to do any more parkour till he passes his exams, mother and son clash.

Review

From its sparky main titles, showing the teenage hero leaping over hutong walls, this promises to be a rappy parkour youth movie, Beijing style. But though there are plenty of short sequences showing him and his pals bouncing around the city and its back alleys, plus some rap by Mongolian pop singer Gongge'er (China's "Fat Michael Jackson"), the script is more concerned with him neglecting the school studies on which his hard-working mother places so much importance for his future. The film doesn't become a doctrinaire lecture on education vs. fun - in fact, the kids' activities are treated sympathetically - but, without any subplot of them training to take part in some competition or other, there's a lack of dramatic tension throughout the film and any clear forward pulse.

City Monkey (玩酷青春) is, however, still a likable movie, largely thanks to its performances and the fact it never takes itself too seriously. Big-screen newcomer Sheng Chao (盛超, from TV) makes an easygoing hero, with no tiresome teenage blues, and veteran actress Li Bin (李濱) almost steals the show as the sarcastic grandmother who secretly supports his obsession. (Her contribution to the closing titles is especially memorable.) The well-known Lü Liping (呂麗萍) seems a bit miscast as the uneducated, devoted mother with a strong stubborn streak, and seems more natural in her scenes with older cast members like Li and, as her son's father, Guo Tao (郭濤). Director Patrick Kong (孔令晨, not to be confused with Hong Kong's Patrick Kong 葉念琛, who directed L for Love, L for Lies 我的最愛) delivers a relaxedly paced film, paragraphed with attractive tableaux of Beijing street/trafficscapes.