Crazy English (film)
| Crazy English | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Traditional | 瘋狂英語 |
| Simplified | 疯狂英语 |
| Mandarin | Fēngkúang yīngyǔ |
| Directed by | Zhang Yuan |
| Produced by |
Chen Ziqiu Zhang Yuan Zhang Peimin Willy Cao |
| Starring | Li Yang |
| Music by | Li Xiaolong |
| Cinematography | Zhang Yuan |
| Edited by | Xu Hong |
| Distributed by | Celluloid Dreams |
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Release date
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Running time
|
95 minutes |
| Country | China |
| Language |
Mandarin English |
Crazy English is a 1999 Chinese documentary directed by Zhang Yuan. The film premiered along with Zhang's Seventeen Years at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. It established Zhang's position as a "legitimate" director after years of working independently from, and often at odds with, the Chinese authorities.
In contrast to earlier films, like East Palace, West Palace (1997), Crazy English was produced with the cooperation of the state-owned Xi'an Film Studio, which enjoys a "presented by" billing in the film's credits.
The film follows one of the People's Republic of China's most popular motivational speakers, Li Yang, the founder of "Crazy English". Li is known for his stadium-sized presentations where he exhorts his audiences to engage in mass recitations of English phrases and idioms, often with a strong nationalist bent: "Conquer English to Make China Stronger!". Li, however, has also courted controversy. Despite the fact that he teaches a foreign language, Li has never left China, a fact not revealed in the film until the end. Other common criticisms, including accusations that Li Yang is a "nationalist huckster" and that his methods do not actually improve English-speaking ability, receive a much more subtle presentation in Zhang's film.
The film follows Li on his tours throughout China with a few interspersed interviews. Zhang Yuan has described the film as a combination of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump.
The seeds for Crazy English first arose when Li Yang's manager asked to meet with Zhang Yuan at a bar in Beijing's Sanlitun neighborhood. At the time Zhang Yuan had not even heard of Li Yang or his "Crazy English" programs. After meeting with the manager, Zhang was sufficiently intrigued by the idea of a documentary about Li to arrange for an actual meeting with the motivational speaker.
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Wikipedia