People watch from a street a ceremony marking the start of the school year held at a school in Beijing in this file picture. —Zhao Rong/Qianlong.com/Reuters pic
Starring Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee, two popular figures in Chinese cinema, the film is based on a novel and tells the story of a teenage girl who teams up with a school drop-out to protect her from bullies. China’s communist authorities appear to have only very reluctantly allowed the film by Hong Kong director Derek Tsang to show because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Many Chinese have speculated online that it was only green-lighted after cuts were made. The film was released overseas last week., one of the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpieces, cited a survey that found more than 32 per cent of Chinese primary and middle-school pupils have been bullied. Cinema-goers are left in no doubt that the government is taking bullying seriously with public-service announcements before and after the film.