Film
Big Brother (Chinese Movie) Review & Summary
Big Brother poster
- Genre: School, Action, Teacher, Delinquent Students
- Date Released: 2018
- Origin: China
Cast:
- Donnie Yen
- Joe Chen
- Gordon Lau Chiu-Kin (wanted to be a singer)
- Gladys Li (Tomboy who wanted to be an engineer and design cars)
- Jack Lok Ming-Kit (wanted to be a teacher)
- Chris Tong Kwan-Yiu (wanted to be in IT)
- Bruce Tong Kwan-Chi (wanted to be in Business Management)
I have to admit that I watched this film solely for the reason of being Joe Chen was in it. I am a massive Joe Chen fan.
I thought there will be a lovely romance in this film between Joe Chen’s character and Donnie Yen’s.
Actually, Joe Chen’s role was so tiny but she made it memorable. Her clumsiness gave the film a few laughs.
Nevertheless, despite the small role from Joe Chen, I thoroughly enjoyed this film.
Mind you, it is not the best of films, but Donnie Yen was so charismatic, you just have to watch him. Also, I found that this film has a heart, it has that feel good factor.
His fighting scenes were spectacular, you unconsciously clench your fists and mentally join in the fight, it was that good.
Anyway the story is about Henry Chen Xia (Donnie Yen) who used to be a delinquent student at Tak Chi Secondary School.
He caused untold damage, including ending a school mate’s career as a pianist.
Despite his bad attitude, the then school principal did not give up on him but encouraged him to do better in America when his aunt and her American husband took him to the USA with them.
There he joined the US Navy/army and did so well but he came to realise the impunity of war. He left the army rather disillusioned and went around the world to find himself and his mojo back!
He was in correspondence with his old school principal who raised the idea of him becoming a teacher at his old school.
Tak Chi Secondary School is under threat of being closed down because of the dwindling numbers of enrolees due to the delinquency problems.
There he was assigned to be the homeroom & General Knowledge teacher of the most tearaway teenagers belonging to F 6E.
On his first day, he was ignored by his class who were cooking ramen in the classroom, one was smoking, some were sleeping, chatting and the rest were on their mobile phones.
But he was prepared. He turned on the fire sprinkler to soak everyone up and get their attention.
He then realised that there were five in his class who were the regular troublemakers.
He studied their profiles and found solutions to make each one more attentive with their studies.
One was a half-caste black boy, who suffers from discrimination. He wanted to be a singer but lacks confidence. Henry helped him find the strength to perform in public.
One was a girl, who grew into a bolshy tomboy because she was starved of parental love. Her father ignored her as soon as her baby brother was born. Her father told her that she should forget studying and arranged for her to get married.
Henry arranged for the father and daughter to have a race. When the father thought that his daughter was hurt in an accident, he was wailing in regret and they bonded.
There were twin boys, whose father was alcoholic and rather abusive. So Henry made them have a sit-down and talk among themselves. The father was actually feeling isolated from twins because they have stopped talking to him. Their family of three had become a family of two. He felt excluded
And the fifth boy lived with his grandmother. He worked part-time in a restaurant and the local hoodlum got him to do the dirty for him. The hoodlum owns a kickboxing ring where fighters from all over the world come and outdo one another. The hoodlum threatened and tasked the boy to drug the drink of one of the main foreign fighters. He got caught and beaten then locked in a locker.
Henry was there to save the day beating up everyone. Exciting fight scenes.
The ruckus was reported in the news and Henry was much lauded. Not only his own students admired him but the whole school including the teachers, whom Joe Chen is one, was proud of him.
The gangster/hoodlum struck again on the very day of the final exam. He locked up the students preventing them from attending their test.
Fortunately, Henry turned up and had another thrilling fight scenes. 🙂 It turned out the hoodlum boss was the boy (pianist), whose hand Henry damaged a long time ago.
Henry told him that he had always felt guilty about him and he was going to seek him out and apologise. It was a nice moment especially when the hood intoned that he had always like to play the piano.
Then another school year starts and Tak Chi school is allowed to continue to provide education as more students wanted to attend the school.
Henry greets his new inattentive students with a good soaking from the fire sprinkle….