The Ark of Mr Chow is not a bad movie, but it's also not very memorable. The acting, pacing, and dialogue were about average but the problem I had with the movie is that there was no real point to it. It tries to be several classic American movies packaged in a very Chinese bundle. None of it works. It's not nearly well acted or written enough to be Good Will Hunting, not funny or enjoyable enough as the original Revenge of the Nerds, and not relatable enough to be Standy By Me. The focus and tone shifts from scene to scene like it was trying to hard to be all 3 of those movies at the same time. Like the great steps forward (which were in reality great leaps backwards) of the cultural revolution, this movie is a product of the Chinese film industry trying to catch up too quickly with the rest of the world in dramatic, coming of age tales. And it's a shame too, since the concept of incredibly gifted children being plucked out of obscurity by the Chinese bureaucracy to enroll in a top level university could have been mined for an authentic and distinctly Chinese coming of age drama. Great movies about young people discovering who they are very rare in Chinese cinema simply because as a society, children were never encouraged to be anything but what their parents hoped for.
Review of The Ark of Mr Chow
