American Dreams in China

A story revolves around three friends who meet each other in college - one is a country bumpkin, one has returned from abroad and one is angry at the world. Together, they establish an English review school to achieve their version of the Chinese Dream.

Cheng Dong Qing (Huang Xiaoming) comes from a family of farmers. For fear that he will have to spend his lifetime as a farmer after failing the exams twice, he memorizes the dictionary and finally earns a spot in university. Meng Xiao Jun (Deng Chao) is an intellectual with overwhelming confidence who always considers himself to be the best. Wang Yang (Tong Dawei) is a romanticist who loves literature and fine arts. Three very different individuals cross paths at the same school to become friends. Like everyone their age, they wish to live the American Dream, but their paths diverge when only two of them get approved to go abroad. Nonetheless, the journey at home and away from home still isn't easy and the friends find each other again with a vision to create a school for their new dream.

• Filming took place in Tianjin, Beijing and New York.
• Filming lasted around three months from July to September 2012.
• What Director Peter Chan initially had in mind was to have Huang Xiaoming play Meng Xiao Jun, but Huang Xiaoming was drawn to Cheng Dong Qing and found most similarities with that character.
• Deng Chao also hadn't planned to play Meng Xiao Jun but asked for the role after reading the script.
• The script Deng Chao read was originally in Chinese. After filming began, many lines were changed to English. The crew hired three English teachers to help him review. Even when filming The Four 2, Deng Chao was practicing lines with his English teacher, sometimes in ancient costume and hanging on wires.
• On his first day of filming where he was supposed to get drunk, Tong Dawei asked for real alcohol to make the scene more realistic.
• On premiere day in Hong Kong, Peter Chan revealed that Deng Chao wasn't initially planning to attend as he had scheduled to leave a day in advance. However, after hearing that singer Jackie Cheung was attending, he immediately changed his schedule and chose to stay one more day on his own expense just so he could meet his idol. The movie did well in the box office and won several awards.
• The director included many of his own personal experiences in the movie. For example, when he was merely a trainee waiter who wasn't even eligible to get tipped, these memories were written into Deng Chao's character who is someone who returns from abroad.

	Huang Xiaoming as Cheng Dongqing
	Deng Chao as Meng Xiaojun
	Tong Dawei as Wang Yang
	Jennifer Du Juan as Su Mei

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