General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Youth (芳华) (2017 film)

Youth (芳华, also released as Fang Hua) is a 2017 Chinese drama, history, and war film directed by Feng Xiaogang and written by Yan Geling, adapted from her novel of the same name. It follows members of a People's Liberation Army cultural troupe (文工团) in the 1970s and 1980s as they experience first love, bullying, war, and the upheavals of a changing China¹^•².

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	Feng Xiaogang (director and producer); Yan Geling (screenwriter, from her novel)¹
Lead cast	Huang Xuan as Liu Feng; Miao Miao as He Xiaoping; Zhong Chuxi as Xiao Suizi; Yang Caiyu as Lin Dingding³
Release	Toronto International Film Festival 7 September 2017; mainland China and North America 15 December 2017¹
Runtime	136 minutes (146 minutes in the Toronto festival cut)¹
China box office	1.422 billion yuan cumulative as of 30 April 2024⁴
Worldwide gross	$227,091,290, of which $1,891,956 came from the United States and Canada⁵
Douban rating	7.7 from 859,284 users¹
Major awards	Best Film at the 12th Asian Film Awards (2018); Golden Horse Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay⁴^•¹

Spoilers

Plot

The story is set in the 1970s and 1980s in an army cultural troupe, a performing unit that entertained and inspired soldiers. He Xiaoping (Miao Miao), a girl from a rural background, joins the troupe and is mocked and excluded by fellow female dancers including Lin Dingding and Hao Shuwen. Liu Feng (Huang Xuan), a kind and helpful soldier nicknamed a "living Lei Feng" for his selflessness, is her only supporter².

After an incident, Liu Feng and He Xiaoping both leave the comfortable life of the troupe and are drawn into the brutal war with Vietnam, where their youth is spent amid gunfire and artillery³. The film follows the former troupe members through separation and reunion as the era changes, each ending with a markedly different fate³.

Production

Feng Xiaogang had wanted for years to make a film about cultural-troupe life, which he knew firsthand: he joined a propaganda team at 19, entered the cultural troupe at 20, and stayed until he was 27⁶. Around four years before release he approached Yan Geling, who had also served in a cultural troupe, and she wrote the screenplay⁷. The novel's original title was You Touched Me (你触摸了我); Feng suggested renaming it Fang Hua, explaining that "fang" means fragrance and "hua" means brilliant color, evoking youth and beauty⁸.

Principal photography ran from 5 January to 7 April 2017, on locations in Hainan, Yunnan, and Beijing⁴. Feng spent 35 million yuan building a full cultural-troupe set, including a rehearsal hall, to recreate the environment of his memory⁹. He cast newcomers for the female roles and required that the actresses have dance or music backgrounds; the casting call explicitly excluded anyone who had undergone cosmetic surgery⁶^•⁹.

Release and withdrawal

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2017¹. Its original mainland release date was 29 September 2017, but the film was suddenly withdrawn despite having already passed censorship; according to IMDb trivia, more than 20 million yuan spent on promotion was wasted⁵. The critic Simon Abrams at RogerEbert.com reported that the film bureau shelved the film about a week before its planned late-September U.S. theatrical release, with no official explanation, and cited Variety's Peter Frater's speculation that the postponement avoided potential embarrassment near the National Party Congress¹⁰.

The film was rescheduled and opened in mainland China and North America on 15 December 2017⁴. In January 2018 its theatrical key was extended for one month, from 16 January to 15 February⁴.

Box office

The film was a commercial success in China. It earned 75.82 million yuan on 16 December 2017, approached 290 million yuan by the evening of 17 December, reached 380 million yuan in its first four days, and passed 1 billion yuan by 28 December⁴. Huayi Brothers' annual report put its 2017 box office at about 1.2 billion yuan¹¹, and the cumulative China total stood at 1.422 billion yuan as of 30 April 2024⁴.

Outside China the film was a limited release. In the United States and Canada, distributed by China Lion Film Distribution, it opened on 15 December 2017 in 30 theaters with a weekend gross of $338,604 and finished with $1,891,956¹². Worldwide gross was $227,091,290⁵.

Reception and awards

On Douban the film holds a 7.7 rating from 859,284 users, ranking better than 89 percent of drama films on the site¹. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an 82 percent Tomatometer score from 17 reviews and an 86 percent audience score¹³. The Guardian's Cath Clarke called it an ambitious, novelistic film that covers swaths of Chinese history in broad brushstrokes but carries honest things to say about bullying¹⁴.

The film won Best Film at the 1st Saipan International Film Festival and the 9th Macau International Film Festival in 2017, and Best Film at the 12th Asian Film Awards and the China Film Directors' Guild "Film of the Year" in 2018⁴. At the 54th Golden Horse Awards it was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, and it received a Best Chinese Language Film nomination at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards¹.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026