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Big Brother (2018 film)
Big Brother is a 2018 Hong Kong action drama film directed by Kam Ka-wai and starring Donnie Yen and Joe Chen. The film was released on 16 August 2018. PlotAfter several years of serving in the United States Marine Corps, Henry Chan decides to start a career as a schoolteacher at his former school, Tak Chi Secondary School. After showing his recommendation letter to the principal and getting accepted, the principal informs Henry that the class he must teach is at room 6B, a class considered as one of the worst in the school. Upon arriving at the class, Henry notices that the kids are doing activities not related to the class teaching. After initially being unable to get the kids' attention, Henry comments on the activities that they are already doing, then walks to the front of the class and introduces himself, but in vain. Henry then forces the fire sprinkler to activate, causing the students to get soaked and allowing him to welcome them to his class. Later, Henry walks into class, barely managing to avoid a tub of water that the students set up to prank him with and seeing one of the students, Jack with a pack of cigarettes, asks him to give the pack to Henry. Then Henry asks one of the students, Zufa, to name the three ingredients in a cigarette, which persuades the class to start listening and become interested in Henry's lesson explaining the negative effects of a cigarette and how tar could form in someone's lungs. At lunch, the captain of the school's basketball team makes one of Jack's friends, Bruce trip. This results in a fight of which five of Henry's students get suspended, and Henry manages to stop a fight between Jack and one of the basketball players before they leave the building. That night, Henry decides to look at the files of all five students: Zufa, the son of a Pakistani immigrant, always being discriminated because of his race and only wanting to become a musician, a girl named Denan, who is a tomboy wanting to get her father's attention, and twin brothers Bruce and Chris, who plays video games and works at a grocery store to make money respectively. However, Henry is unable to find any information about Jack's family background. Some time later, Henry notices Zufa running away from his father and associates after stealing a ticket. Henry takes Zufa to a concert and lets Zufa perform in front of a crowd since being bullied several years ago. Elsewhere, the twins Bruce and Chris' father comes home, and when he shoves them out of his home after they refused to buy him a beer, Henry appears the next day and tells their father to go to rehabilitation for the boys' wellbeing. At Denan's house, she drives away in her parents' car after her father tells her to act like a girl, and Henry stops her after which he informs Denan that driving without a license is illegal. He then takes her to a racetrack along with her father, where her go-kart is destroyed by a truck while she barely escapes. Unaware of this, her father cries mourning Denan, who realizes that he does love her and hugs him. The next day at school, Bruce and Chris are sent to the rehabilitation center where their father is and he explains as they interview him that his wife left him at his lowest, forcing him to start drinking and forget about the twins, then he apologizes to them. In the meantime, Jack is working for a mixed martial arts (MMA) bettor, Kane, who tells him to drug a fighter's drink before the next game. As he does so, he is caught. Before Jack can put the blame on Kane, the bettor locks him inside a locker. Henry eventually arrives and manages to fend off Kane's men and a professional fighter planned to fight in a few minutes. This causes Henry to become more respected among the students in his classroom. Unbeknownst to him, Kane was actually a student that Henry had bullied back in his youth by throwing water balloons at the piano Kane was playing and breaking his hand with a statue, resulting in him getting sent to the United States to work with the military. In the mock entrance examination, everyone in Henry's class does well, except for Bruce, who has started becoming addicted to drugs. Although Henry promises to Bruce that he would help him, Bruce starts to become more depressed, and eventually jumps off the balcony of their house, putting him in a coma. Henry's teaching license is then revoked by the teaching officials after the media twists the news and blames it on him, which causes the students to begin studying twice as hard to prove Henry's innocence. On the day of the exam, the class receives a text message to meet Henry in the school an hour before the exam. However, this turns out to be a trick, as it is the work of Kane and his employees. Knowing this, Henry quickly lets his students escape to the examination hall while dealing with Kane's employees. As the two get into a fight, Kane informs Henry that he was the one whom Henry had thrown water balloons at and broken his arm when he was little, preventing him from competing in the upcoming music competition, before Henry asks for forgiveness and walks out of the classroom. After several weeks, every student passes, and the board is awarded a twenty percent bonus fund due to the students performing well in the exam. Henry returns to teaching, and performs the fire sprinkler trick on another classroom. Cast
ReceptionBox officeThe film grossed a total of US$22,029,250 worldwide, combining its box office gross from Hong Kong, China, North America and Australia.[1] In Hong Kong, the film grossed HK$7,253,433 during its theatrical run from 16 August to 3 October 2018.[2] In China, the film grossed a total of CN¥146,303,000 at the box office.[3] Critical receptionSimon Abrams gave the film a score of 2.5 stars on RogerEbert.com. Abrams described the film as a 'corny, civic-minded "Stand and Deliver"' with "leaps in feel-good logic" while asserting that Donnie Yen's "disarming poise and arch sincerity" would "[make] you want to suspend your disbelief".[4] See alsoReferencesExternal links |
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