Why Democracy - Please Vote For Me (2007)
IMDB rating: 8.2/10
Country: China
Year: 2007
Genre: Documentary
Language: Chinese (Mandarin)
Running Time: 58 min
Director: Chen Weijun
Synopsis
Wuhan is a city in central China about the size of London, and it is here that director Weijun Chen has conducted an experiment in democracy. A grade 3 class at Evergreen Primary School has their first encounter with democracy by holding an election to select a Class Monitor. Eight-year olds compete against each other for the coveted position, abetted and egged on by teachers and doting parents. Elections in China take place only within the Communist Party, but recently millions of Chinese voted in their version of Pop Idol. The purpose of Weijun Chen’s experiment is to determine how, if democracy came to China, it would be received. Is democracy a universal value that fits human nature? Do elections inevitably lead to manipulation? Please Vote For Me is a portrait of a society and a town through a school, its children and its families.
Awards
Adolf Grimme Awards ( 2008 ) - Outstanding Individual Achievement
Ashland Independent Film Festival ( 2008 ) - Best Documentary Feature
Chicago International Children's Film Festival ( 2008 ) - Adults' Jury Award for a Documentary Film or Video
Chicago International Children's Film Festival ( 2008 ) - Children's Jury Award for a Documentary Film or Video (2nd place)
Reviews
"Who would have thought that a documentary about a few Chinese third graders would be such a thought-provoking conversation-starter? Please Vote for Me is an absolute must-see. It's got all the emotional effectiveness and entertainment value of a great Michael Moore documentary without any of the self-indulgent spin. Set aside 57 minutes of your time and see this film."
-- Judge Clark Douglas, DVD Verdict
"After watching Please Vote for Me, the first thing I did was go online and make sure that this was a true documentary, and not a clever mockumentary. Apparently, everything you see and hear in this film is completely legit, which is a truly head-spinning prospect. It centers on a group of third-grade students in present-day China who undergo a simple social experiment -- a democratic election in their classroom to determine who will become the classroom monitor. Instead of paying attention to this project with half an eye or treating it with easy sarcasm, as you would expect most American students to do, these Chinese students throw themselves into the election body and soul, applying to it what could almost be called life and death stakes. All seemingly without the guidance of teachers, they cook up plots to topple competing candidates, enlist fellow students as political consultants, modify their behavior around potential rivals and supporters in order to make things go their way, and exploit vulnerabilities in their opponents that you can scarcely believe a third-grader would consider."
-- Ryan Stewart, Cinematical.com
Link to website: http://www.whydemocracy.net/film/3
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1097256/
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RELEASE INFORMATION
General details
Source: NTSC DVD5
Video: H.264, 23.976 fps, 2893 Kbps
Audio: Mandarin Chinese, DD 2.0 (AC3), 192 Kbps
Resolution: 716 x 480, displayed at ~849 x 480 (1.77:1)
Subtitles: English (hardcoded)
Chapter Markers: Yes
Length: 57 min
Size: 1.26 GiB
Video details
Writing library : x264 core 98 r1649+2 (Jun '10)
Encode date : 17 June 2010
Quality level (CRF) : 16.5
Format profile : High@L3.0
Encoding settings
cabac=1 / ref=6 / deblock=1:-2:-2 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.00 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=20 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=16.5 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.20
AviSynth filtering
TFM(pp=0).TDecimate()
vinverse(sstr=8.5,amnt=24)
Crop(2, 0, -2, -0)
fft3dfilter(plane=3,sigma=1.
Encoder comment
Asian movies are in woeful need of decent x264 releases, so here's another little contribution. Please Vote For Me is a quick documentary that's engaging for the drama it shows (quite apart from its political implications). It gradually gets more interesting the further you watch it. The filmmaker spent a lot of time filming the kids prior to filming the actual documentary, so they're very used to the camera and basically treat it as part of their environment. It makes for a realistic, unacted feel.
For the encode, I used Vinverse() to get rid of some residual combing due to low-quality MPEG-2 encoding and also a bit of chroma denoising with fft3dfilter(). As usual, no resizing was done in order to preserve full quality in that respect. The file is a bit large because I went for a high quality level - the encode should look almost indistinguishable from the source DVD.
Also as usual, the newest revision of x264 available during the time of encode was used with high quality settings for maximum compression efficiency. Hardcoded English subtitles were present on the source.
Playback on PCs with MPC-HomeCinema from the CCCP codec pack is recommended. On Mac, MPlayer OSX Extended.
If you're new to encoding and would like to try it, check out my simple DVD-to-x264 encoding guide in the forums.
- coj
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Other great Asian films on this tracker I've encoded: Dare mo Shiranai (Nobody Knows) [2004] | Tenten (Adrift in Tokyo) [2007] | Luo Ye Gui Gen (Getting Home) [2007] | Ping Pong [2002]
Uploaded: Summer Wars [2009]
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