InspireGato Film Perfection

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

watsonlt "Please Vote For Me" is a documentary film based on a school in the city of Wuhan, China. The film follows three young children who were chosen by their teacher to run for election to be the class monitor. Since China is a communist country in which the people cannot vote for their leaders, it is a big deal that the children are able to vote for their own class monitor and have a choice. The kids are fourth graders at a primary school called Evergreen Primary and include two boys and one girl; Cheng Cheng, Luo Lei, and Xiaofei.Cheng Cheng, Luo Lei and Xiaofei all begin campaigning to become their class' class monitor. Almost immediately their parents want to get involved in some form. Whether it was helping them memorize their speech, telling them they are playing the flute horribly or bringing in favors to bribe the classmates of their child they were involved throughout the whole endeavor.The students go through the backstabbing, plotting, bribing and finger pointing of the other candidates and fellow students. There are tears, anger, betrayal and of course two losers in the election while one stands in victory.The idea of the film is to see the effects of democracy in a place where democracy isn't present. Would they have the instincts that we in America would when running for office? Or would they have to be told what to do? Maybe they would even have a clean and fair race without the mudslinging. The film shows that regardless of what style of government we have, communist or democratic, the instinct is to win no matter what the candidate has to do.This documentary is very different from the documentary "To Live is Better Than To Die" in which he went into a village and filmed people who were affected by the AIDS virus. The film was so intimate due to the time he spent with the Ma family. He became almost a member of the family with his work.In "Please Vote For Me" the main subjects are Luo Lei, Xiaofei, and Cheng Cheng. While they all look very cute and innocent, each take measures that are very rash. Cheng Cheng looks sweet and kind but he is the main instigator for the plotting. He started the unfair fight with his idea to boo Xiaofei. Luo Lei is a boy who believes that if he hits his classmates they will listen to him, since he has been class monitor before. If he isn't strict then they won't obey what he tells them to do is his thought. Xiaofei, the only girl running, is seen as the weaker link due to her tendencies to cry and "eat slowly." They each join in on taunts and plots to make the other lose. No one is the innocent party in this film. Their parents play roles in this film as well. Xiaofei's mother is a single parent who works in a school. Luo Lei's parents both work at the police department keeping peace in the city.The editing of the film is very smooth as well as the cinematography. The filming generally includes interviews of the children on who they are voting for as well as a view into the schemes and plots of the three running and their parents. The cameramen are never seen (only once due to the positioning of the cameras) and only briefly heard when asking the classmates who are getting their vote. There is no background music through the entire film and the only music that is heard is the music sang by the kids.

jackhongx The doc was filmed in my hometown, and the first thing I noticed is how crappy those kids, teachers and their parents' mandarin sounds:). We never really speak mandarin that often when I was in school, coz it is so uncool. Things definitely changed since I was there, so should I say somethings changed. Chinese people never enjoyed the true democracy since 1949, and the school system we are having just reflects the real society. This class monitor thing is just another part in the dictatorship hierarchy, teachers picked the kids they like to monitor other classmates, and cool kids like me never really care who will be the guy to monitor us coz we will fight the stupid system anyway. Why bother to introduce a democratic system to elect a little dictator anyway. Kids are so keen to get the job coz the power it represents. Parents are so keen to help their kids to win coz they know it will give them bonus at the time they graduate. For teachers, I have no idea, might be just extra fun at work... so anyway. China is never short of voting system, the problem is the government never wants people to understand the true democracy. I have the feeling that the director probably shares a similar feeling to me, which is sort of disappointment about these younger generation, which made me sad. By the way, I was elected as class monitor once in a quite similar way, but teacher refused to accept the result simply because he didn't like me and chose another kid. He said to us about his decision, "I trust you guys and give you the democratic rights, but look at the guy you chose, you are abusing your rights..." :)

MartinHafer Luo Lei, Cheng Cheng and Xu Xiaofei are all in the same 3rd grade class and are told by their teacher that the three of them will be running in an election to see who will be class monitor. It seems that such democratic-style elections are unknown in China and at first the kids seem a bit puzzled. However, they soon get into the spirit of this and the kids act out lessons about the worst attributes of the electoral system--with name-calling, bribery, threats and a variety of other dirty tricks. This really had me wondering if the kids and their very, very overly-involved parents came up with all this on their own or if perhaps this film was deliberately staged to be a parable about the evils of self-rule! If it wasn't staged, then it says a lot about the natural inclinations of humans.Luo Lei appeared to be very capable as monitor--provided you want a kid who will slap the others around to get them to bend to his iron will! Cheng Cheng was, in many ways, like a little "Eric Cartman"--a rather nasty little porker who slapped his parents around and seemed to have gotten his game plan from Machiavelli--what a conniver! Poor little Xu Xiaofei seemed like an adorable and sweet little kid--and soon it seemed like she was out of her element because she's just too nice to run a dirty campaign like the boys!! Frankly, she was the only likable kid of the three--so naturally she's the one who ended up with the least number of votes--a case where Chinese kids are not so much different from their American counterparts! This was a very fascinating experiment, though I was amazed how dirty the teacher allowed the race to be (hence, making me wonder if perhaps it was all staged to a degree to prove that democracy won't work). I was most surprised at the parents, however, as they were nothing liked I'd expected! The seemed far more involved with their kids and allowed some behaviors that were pretty bad (particularly out of Cheng Cheng)--perhaps this over-indulgence is related to their only being allowed one child per household. In addition, the parents continually drilled the kids, wrote speeches for them and prodded them unmercifully--like you'd expect from an American father who demands that their child excel in sports.Perhaps this film was most helpful to me not because of its lesson about democracy but because it gave amazing insights into the Chinese family and children. It was refreshing to see that even though the government is so different from a Western one, the kids seemed a lot like regular kids--for good and for bad! In particular, I was happy to see that Chinese kids can also be obnoxious and full of energy just like the kids I teach her in the States!!

Ruhi E. Tuzlak This lovely documentary makes it very obvious that there is hardly any difference between an "Experimental Election" recently took place in a Chinese elementary school and the "Real Thing". The step-by-step processes of nomination, campaigning, debating, and voting shows that 'Democracy in Action' could be very exciting, unpredictable, and, most definitely cruel. One of the best parts of the film was the way the three nominees were coached by their parents; this behind-the-scenes staging was very well captured by the director. The parents' very ambitious preparation of their children confirmed that there are lots of Karl Rove's on hand willing to provide help to win an election. Visual quality of the picture is also exceptionally good. Anyone who is interested in "Democracy", "Elections", and "Voting" must see this gem. Highly recommend it.