The best Chinese movie I have ever seen and I'm not kidding.

Try as I might, I usually find that, while Chinese movies may look nice, they usually have terrible plotting, writing, and acting. This little movie NAILS IT. It's a simple story about a 17-year old girl and boy trying to graduate from high school and becoming buddies in the process. It's slice of life. It doesn't try to be anything else, but it does what it does PERFECTLY. The acting of the female and male leads and the supporting cast is natural and nuanced. The plot subverts its own predictability to keep itself fresh the whole way through. There is beautiful camera work and a touching soundtrack (a little sweet perhaps but that's true to Chinese style I think). An excellent movie.

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Weird pacing and some of it just made no sense

I have not watched many Chinese movies, but have enjoyed a few Chinese dramas. I am studying Chinese so watched this to improve my Chinese. I may have missed some details, so forgive me.

I did enjoy the student life at the start of the movie, like I also enjoyed "Unrequited Love" (暗恋：橘生淮南）。I would have have liked to know the time and place, I don't think it was mentioned. I found Zheng Wei to be a bit unbelievable at first, she was so over the top aggressive. Also the grime in the boys' room was too exaggerated. Her two boyfriends looked too similar, it was hard to tell them apart later.

There were skips and weird pacing that I found unsatisfying, like at the start of year 2 suddenly Zheng and Chen are dating? Also there were too many plots for a movie, each of the girls had their own story, probably these are handled better in the book, but the movie was too confusing, and too depressing due to having to have each one be a tragedy.

I actually liked that there was a adult part although this was a bit of a mess too. The characters decisions were too convenient, not realistic, like the mad wife.

All in all I did like some of the acting, and especially the main actress, but the story was a mess.

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