A “controversial” teen summer movie tackles coming-of-age and (possible) LGBT themes
The story of the movie Upcoming Summer is based on a lie: Chen Chen (Zhang Zifeng), a straight-A high school student in Xiamen, Fujian province, fails the gaokao (college entrance examinations) after running into the rain on purpose and catching a cold the night before the exams, to rebel against her parents. Then, to stop her parents’ nagging, she pretends to break up with her “boyfriend” Zheng Yuxing (Wu Lei), who is in fact an “internet celebrity” at Chen’s school with thousands of fans on the video-sharing platform Douyin, and who does not even know her.
To Chen’s surprise, Zheng becomes her classmate in “Grade Thirteen,” a class at Chen’s school comprising students who need to study hard to retake the gaokao. To make things worse, their teacher announces their “breakup” to the whole class on the first day of school and warns Zheng not to bother Chen again. After this unusual start to their acquaintance, the two teenagers start a “relationship,” go through various ups and downs together, and help each other grow during an eventful summer.
This seemingly conventional movie on themes like gaokao, parent-child relationship, first love, and coming-of-age was ambitiously labelled by its producers and director as “the best Chinese teen film of 2021” and to “redefine teen films.” Earlier this month, director Leste Chen Cheng-Tao explained his understanding of youth: “To me, youth does not mean specific ages, but the process of becoming your ideal self. Your puberty truly ends once you realize what kind of life and love you want, or luckily find the right one.” He said he hoped to tell audiences via the movie, “You're coming-of-age if you’re striving to live the way you like, regardless of your age.”
Tan Yunfei is the editorial director of The World of Chinese. She reports on Chinese language, food, traditions, and society. Having grown up in a rural community and mainly lived in the cities since college, she tries to explore and better understand China's evolving rural and urban life with all readers.
