The first ever feature film produced by the Hong Kong Baptist University, “Pretty Heart” is a timely discursive take on the increasingly more competitive arena of education. Unlike Nattawut Poonpiriya's “Bad Genius,” however, which is a razor-sharp, heart-thumping romp on the nuts and bolts of students' modus operandi and motivations behind wholesale cheating, “Pretty Heart” dissects the pressure to excel by humanizing all the people involved in preparing the city's secondary school students for a test that will significantly impact their future.
Pretty Heart is screening at Asian Pop Up Cinema
The film interweaves three storylines, that of between English literature teacher Chloe Lee and the estranged relationship she has with her father, Lee Lung Kei, a principal of a cram center, her blossoming romance with her father's top tutor K.K. Ho, and the relationship they all have with the kids they teach, particularly that with Shu Ting, a student who embodies the travails of less than-privileged Hong Kong youth who have to face both academic and personal hurdles.
What enriches these stories is the bigger context of the complexities of education from a pedagogical point of view to its politics. It's impressive how the film, directed by Terry NG Ka Wai and whose script was the winner of a competition organized by the Academy of Film, serves both as a commentary on the diverse and even clashing approaches of teaching by schools and cram centers and as a movie that emphasizes the pertinent role of educators as their students' support system.
Since the movie deals with family dynamics and personal ailments however, with Chloe suffering from a heart disease, the film at times can border on the mawkish. It's the relationship between Lee Lung Kei, who becomes a parental figure and father of sorts to Shu Ting, whose economic status makes it more challenging for her to just focus on her studies, which pulls in more emotional heft without being trite.
Having said this, Jennifer Yu Heung Ying, who plays Chloe, and Vincent Wong, who plays the charismatic tutor K.K. Ho give affecting performances as teachers who just want to do their best to make sure their students succeed. They also have palpable chemistry. Hugo Ng, who plays Lee Lung Kei, is able to complement and transform his acting into ways that are diverse and unique enough to define his various relationships with his daughter, his most prized employee and a student who has also become like another daughter to him.
The production design of “Pretty Heart” does the trick for capturing the eccentricities and interesting culture of tutors being treated as rockstars and looked at as pseudo-celebrities by students. It could have been great if the same was executed to illuminate the tension and anxious atmosphere of the all-important examination day.
“Pretty Heart,” also co-produced by one of Hong Kong's most renowned directors, Fruit Chan, is a film which tries to speak of the ethos of Hong Kong's education system and culture. It's an attempt that is light, but frank at the same time. The mishmash of storylines, however, holds it back from having the most solid landing, but the relevance of its theme is irrefutably resonant.
