Reviews & Ratings for
Zai na he pan qing cao qing More at IMDbPro »

2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Hou the populist, 4 March 2005

Author: alsolikelife from United States

A chronicle of a city schoolteacher who sojourns in the southern countryside, this film amply demonstrates an early populist streak in Hou's work, marked especially by his remarkable handling of child actors and themes (to think that 1982 was the year when Hou and Steven "E.T." Spielberg were most aligned in their sensibilities). There's an incredibly Farrellian sequence devoted to how the kids handle their teacher's request to produce their own stool samples for tapeworm inspection, and a musical number about drinking cola that comes out of nowhere (right before the hero gets his *** kicked while attempting to stop a poacher from fishing illegally). Despite the wacky sequence of events, Hou's understanding of social milieu is already pronounced.

1 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Rarity from Hou's commercial period (but you're not missing much, even if you're a fan), 30 August 2002

Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

It's not a good movie, but not a terrible one, either. I think this was actually Hou's most profitable film in Taiwan. I know it was successful, anyway. It's certainly more commercial than any of his other films that I've seen. It stars a famous pop singer of the time, Kenny B (and, let me tell you, if this guy could be a pop star in Taiwan, YOU could just as easily). The press release said it was supposed to be a musical, but that was misleading. I was looking forward to it for that reason (a Hou musical? The thought intrigued me), but, alas, all I got was one terrible song in which Mr. B popped in once in a while, a teacher singing a song to a class (both of these are the same song, and it was about sharing cola!), and two songs performed by children at a school play near the end of the film. The plot concerns a teacher (Kenny B) fighting to get a law passed to protect the local stream, in which a couple of people have been spotted either poisoning fish or electrocuting them. Let me cut to the point: every scene that does not concern the kids who co-star in the film sucks. The kids are wonderful, just as they were in A Summer at Grandpa's, which Hou made the next year. They are a little less realistic than the children in Grandpa's, and a little more cutesy, but they are remarkable actors all of them. The screenplay is often horrible, but, all in all, it wasn't too bad. I will admit that it is not nearly as important or artistically accomplished as many of the Hou films that I enjoyed less than it. 6/10.

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