Little Big Master (五個小孩的校長)is a Hong Kong fact-based story in 2015 directed by Adrian Kwan Shun-fai(關信輝) who is mainly directed gospel movies before.
The movie portrayed of a true story of Hong Kong headmistress in an international prestigious kindergarten Lui Wai-hung played by Miriam Yeung (楊千嬅) who feels very disillusioned with the parents and the school that only care about the results of the students and the donations. Lui had taken early retirement and decided to travel around the world with her husband, a museum designer Dong played by Louis Koo (古天樂). However, Lui notices about a 50-year-old Yuen Tin Kindergarten in Yuen Long with only five students from low-income and ethnic-minority families, will be forced to close down, and they are hiring a principal-teacher-janitor with HK$4,500 salary a month. She decides to take the job keeping the school running and gives those students a quality education.
According to the concept of national allegories proposed by Fredric Jameson that the third-world texts are necessarily emphasis the political dimension in the form of national allegory. The film involved many social issues in Hong Kong, such as the helicopter parent, problems of grassroots and minorities families, disparity of wealth, commercialized education, and incompetent of the education system which are closely related to our daily life. Those issues displayed in the film arc comes to revolve around the five students’ families for examples, an aged scrap-collecting father and his mainland wife, the disabled-father family evicted by the thuggish developers, and the ethnic family with the patriarchal attitudes. And the commercialized education in tutorial companies distorted the nature of education which only concern the profit but not the educational quality. In the film, Lui had asked the chairman of the tutorial company does him running a business or working on education.
Since the trend of Hong Kong film industry is full of foul language or smoking and sex scenes, the narrative of kindergarten and educational problems or even the social problems in Hong Kong-produced film are infrequent in those few years. Compared with other Hong Kong-produced film such as “The Midnight After” (那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角開往大埔的紅VAN), Little Big Master is highlighted the spirit of selfless dedication, dream, persevere and the satisfaction of making a difference in someone else's life without any foul language and smoking scenes in the film spreading the positive message to the audience.
Beginning in 1998, the director Adrian Kwan wrote and directed a series of gospel films with heartwarming messages and faith-based stories such as “Sometimes, Miracles Do Happen”(1999), “The Miracle Box”(2004), and “A Dream Team”(2012) earning the epithet “Gospel Director”. Kwan had stated that film is also a medium which brings spiritual healing, he hopes film can help audiences overcome hurdles and change their life throughout the message of love, selfless and hopeful. Before the shooting, Kwan visited principal Lui several times to see her teaching and accompanied her visiting to the students’ families helped to increase the authenticity of the film. He also chooses to use the real photos of principal Lui and five students instead of shooting the ending with the actors to represent the fate of school and let audiences feel more authenticity.
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Reference
Ahmad, A. (1987). Jameson's Rhetoric of
Otherness and the" National Allegory". Social Text 17
Yau, E. (2015). Retired teacher returns to
work to save dying kindergarten. South
China Morning Post. Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1650027/little-big-master-based-true-and-uplifting-tale
The Ultimate Guide to Hong Kong Film
Directors
http://www.hkfilmdirectors.com/en/director/kwan-shun-fai
Student Name: Li Yin Wa
Student Number. : 10518624 / 21423736
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