The 2017 Chinese coming-of-age drama Youth (芳华), which opened in Pittsburgh on December 15 (and is still playing at the AMC Loews Waterfront), will play at the Regent Square Theater from December 29 through January 4. A September 9 Variety review introduces the film:
The narrator Suizi (Zhong Chuxi), a stand-in for screenwriter Yan Geling (“The Flowers of War” and “Coming Home”), whose semi-biographical novel was the film’s literary source, belongs to a military dance troupe stationed in the Great Southwest. However, the central figure is actually Xiaoping (Miao Miao), whose father has been branded a Rightist and thrown in a re-education camp. She is recruited from Beijing by the good-looking and kind-hearted lead dancer Liu Feng (Huang Xuan).The film will play each day at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm; tickets are only available for purchase in person at the theater. It is located at 1035 S. Braddock Ave. (map) in the Regent Square neighborhood, east of Squirrel Hill and Oakland.
The pristine surroundings of their training center and dreamy soft focus that accompanies the young dancers whenever they rehearse revolutionary ballets exude a rarefied atmosphere that reinforces how privileged the troupe is, shielded from hunger, violence and back-breaking labor at the height of the Cultural Revolution. And yet, a hierarchy based on political pedigree is firmly in place in the so-called classless society. Shuwen (Li Xiaofeng) the daughter of a general and hospital supervisor, is the queen bee. Dingding (Yang Caiyu) scores with her looks, while Mongolian Drolma (Sui Yuan) plays her ethnic minority card.
