Suddenly Seventeen (2016)

Country: China
Format: movie
Genre: romance, comedy, supernatural
Cast: Ni Ni, Wallace Huo, Darren Wang, Ma Su, Bing Liu, Mike Kai Sui, Pilong Pan, Wentong Ning, Vicky Yu, Xi Lai,
Synopsis: Liang is 28-year old woman waiting for her prince charming Mao to propose her. For 10 years she has been standing behind him, supporting him in his every decision, while giving up on her dream of becoming an artist. But instead of a marriage proposal she receives a proposal to break up. In a moment of despair, she orders a box of magic chocolates that bring back carefree 17-year old Liang who happens to have totally different views on life than 28-year old Liang.
Rating: 5/5
A movie on what half of the people "accidentally click on". To be honest, the first time I also clicked on it without knowing exactly what it is, as the title on Youtube is "Seventeen again" and makes you think of a remake of Zac Efron's "17 again". Well, I can guarantee you that this Chinese movie is something much better than the Hollywood sweetheart's movie.

The star of the movie is Liang, played by Ni Ni. She is a woman that represents a lot of real life women. Living upon a long time promise made by her boyfriend, of course she is waiting for a ring and thinking of family. She has lost her former self in order to become perfect wife to her future husband, because he has become her greatest treasure. You can say that she is being stupid and everything, but the truth is that love can be blinding and even in 21st century women have to make choices between career and family.

 You can see the great difference with how she was before meeting Mao and unfortunately, this kind of change is much easier to happen and it happens without herself noticing it.. or even when she notices, she unintentionally is willing to sacrifice herself for the happiness and career of the man, even when he does not want it. Big Liang very feminine and elegant. She is actually the perfect woman to be a wife. On the other side, Small Liang represents everything she was - rebellious, outrageous girl who had her dreams and goals in life. I guess this difference shows how much we as people change with time. I am not the person who I was the day before and I am not the person who I will be tomorrow. We should never forget who we want to become, in order to not lose the sight.

I guess the weirdest thing is that you actually cannot dislike Mao for wanting to break up with Liang. In the end, he was not the one asking Liang to stop painting nor he asked her not to go to Paris. Liang made her choices with him in her mind, but he was not the one making the choices instead of her. She had lost most of the things that made him fall in love with her. He is representing what is so normal in our society - couples miss the right time to marry and end up in situation where they start to question their relationship as it has become too comfortable and routine, while at the same time the same comfort and routine in real marriage would not actually bother them.

I really enjoyed Liang's and Bai's friendship. Despite, being the ugly duckling until university, Bai has turned into beautiful swan in adult life and married a successful foreign businessman. Also, Bai's successful marriage is also the biggest thing that makes Liang think more about her situation. Bai is a true friend who protects her friend in every situation. She might seem the "unreasonable" one in their friendship, but even with her you can all see how much she has changed in her mind with the years.

The last character who needs to be talked about is Yan - seemingly carefree motorcycle guy, who steals the heart of Small Liang. He is exactly the rebellious type of guy who makes girl's heart beat as fast as the wheel of the motorcycle on speeding. He takes a serious interest in Liang, but things get very confusing for him with Liang acting as two very different women. Once again, despite breaking Liang's heart, you cannot dislike him. His actions are understandable and only natural. Only thing that I would have wished, is that Big Liang would have learnt more about him too, because I am sure that if Big Liang would have listened to him and his views on world, she would have had a better opinion about him.

I guess the thing that I really liked about the movie, is that despite having a lot of supernatural things, it keeps the characters very humane and real.This is a movie that reminds us to find the lost child in our hearts and bring it back. It was exactly a movie that I had to see at the moment. To give you an overview what has been going on in my life, is that for last 4 months I have been trying to find a job and I have felt that with all the time that I have spent on stressing and trying to be a perfect grown-up, I have lost myself a bit - I feel as if I am not the same optimistic girl that I used to be. There is a line in one amazing song that says "I am not sure, if I have gone way too fast, but I know that along the way I have lost some smiles.." Well, this is me at the moment, but I hope that with upcoming days I am able to find my inner child and have more optimism and smiles.