Shi cha qi xiao shi (2004)

Director:

Agan

Writers:

Jen Li (screenplay) and
Agan (screenplay) ...

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Edison Chen	...	DJ
Jen Li	...	Jen (as Jennifer Li)
Cary Woodworth	...	Tom
Naomi Gibson	...	Joanna
Aden Cardy-Brown	...	Mr. Thomson
Chris Frampton	...	Einstein
Jo Yang	...	Rie
Danya Lababedi	...	Sandy
Samantha Johanneson	...	Wiebke
Ciaran Doyle	...	Jonathan
Don Klass	...	Andrew
Jon Foo	...	Brian
Leonard Silver	...	Headmaster
Jo Price	...	Miss Angel
Lone Madsen	...	Miss Louise

Also Known As:

Jet Lag (UK) (working title)
Life, Translated (International: English title)

Runtime:

USA:100 min

Country:

UK | China

Language:

English | Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Filming Locations:

Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, UK

Company:

Balagan Productions

Stakes too low.

This is prime Sundance Channel material if I ever saw it. Basically "Life, Translated" is billed as a love story, and while there are romantic overtones in the film, I don't feel there was ever a real fulfillment. It's about a Chinese teen ("Jen", also the writer/actress's real name) who finishes her last year of high school in a London boarding school, where she struggles with her English and cultural differences between her classmates (most notably her roommate who happens to be a bully). She has other people to speak with in Chinese, but her closest friend is DJ, another Asian who has resided in England for seven years already. He picks her up from the airport, transports her luggage to her room, and acts as her guide... though he spends quite a bit of the film thinking and speaking negatively of her. There's another Chinese girl she's introduced to almost immediately upon her arrival who is a bit of an outcast because she steals the other girls' stuff, but you don't really get why, as her family has money and it seems to serve no purpose except to serve as a means of character alienation. I didn't get that she was even a kleptomaniac or had some kind of compulsion to take things that aren't hers. Just something to do, I suppose.

Anyway, there's a whole separate conflict with the school's rugby team not winning games and Jen being behind the start of a new team, but I don't get how that really tied in. It was focused on way more than it should have been. DJ aspires to be a piano composer, but then he wants to play rugby as well. His music teacher continually chides him for not being able to compose because his concentration is elsewhere. (The music teacher really annoyed me. Pretty sure it was her ridiculous dialogue.) There's an American boy played by Cary Woodworth who heads up the rugby team who spends quite a bit of time flip flopping between whether or not he really likes Jen or just likes to torture her. He and DJ never really fight over who should be with Jen (there's even a late night conversation Tom witnesses between Jen and DJ but the jealousy is only slightly expressed in his eyes and never done anything about), when I expected much more than what was actually there.

Simply put, "Life, Translated" is sweet, it's light, it's fun. Some parts run a bit slowly, yes. The conflict is not enough. It's a surface scratcher. Unfortunately, it's very easy to lose interest in. The focus was all in the wrong direction. I was maybe expecting something more in the vein of "Beijing Bicycle".