Review: Flavors of Youth

This film is a Netflix original and is composed of three unrelated short stories. Each story focuses on a central character who has become drained by life and work in the big city. As each of them goes on a journey of self discovery they rediscover memories of more innocent times and use that knowledge to heal. This review contains some spoilers.

I didn't read any reviews prior to seeing this film. The first thing I noticed is that all the stories are based in modern China (since watching it, I have read that this is a co-production between Chinese and Japanese directors and studios who took a lot of inspiration from Makoto Shinkai films). Many of the story elements sparked flashbacks to when I was 17 and spent the whole summer studying in China. (This was many decades ago!) I guess the location of the stories won't mean anything to most viewers but to me these memories took me back to a happy time in my life. So I guess my own experience watching this film reflected the same journey as the main characters.

Bit of trivia that I didn't notice at first but on second viewing I noticed the opening credits show that all of the main characters sit in the same airport awaiting their flight.

Noodles
The first film centres around a young man who lives in the big city but reminisces about his life in the sleepy village 2 hours away from Beijing. For him, the most happy time in his life was spent hanging around with his beloved grandmother and feasting daily on the hand made noodle soup crafted by the expert local noodle maker.

In his humdrum daily city life, the main character spends all his spare time searching for a noodle that can revoke those same emotions but nothing since has come close. The noodles he eats here are made and cut by machine. The dish is uniform, bland and sparse with all the life sucked out of it...a bit like the man himself.

The animation quality of the scenes showing the food in glorious detail did make my mouth water. The anonymous tiny building where he buys all his noodles from reminded me perfectly of a very similar lunchtime noodle establishment that I ate at every day when I was 17.

It takes the sudden news from his family to come back home to his village to knock some sense of life back to the man. He makes it home in time to say farewell to his dying grandmother. Rather than sadness it is a moment for him to reflect on the good times and use that energy to make his life going forward a more positive one.

Fashion Show
The second story features a successful fashion model who begins to fear losing her career as she ages and she witnesses younger models come up through the ranks. Her biggest fear is that she will let down her younger sister who lives with the model and relies on her to help her through school.

The model goes through a bit of a crisis and breaks down, ending up in hospital. She's too wrapped up in her own issues to notice that her little sister has actually been hard at work developing her skills as a fashion designer. The sister is the one who helps the model to get back on her feet and face the catwalk again. As the model realises the importance of family and friendship, she accepts her role as an older model in the industry and no longer feels the intense pressure she previously did.

This story is probably the weakest of the three. I didn't really care much for the characters. I suppose it was interesting to see that even top fashion models who have everything in the world they could possibly want also suffer anxieties, depression and mental breakdowns like any other person. But really, I didn't much care. If you want to skip this story and move on to the final story, I think it would save you some time and add to your enjoyment of the film.


Shikumen
When I spent my summer in Shanghai there were still a lot of the very old living quarters known as shikumen in existence. I loved them so much and I'm glad I got to see them and hang around before the government bulldozed nearly all of them down. Today, a few small tiny lanes are all that remain of these historic buildings which have proved to become top tourist attractions.

I mention shikumen because they feature quite prominently in this final story. The main character is an architect living in a Shanghai city centre illuminated by bright lights and crazy high rise architecture. He is so sucked up in his own little corporate world that he doesn't recognize the little signs that remind him of his youth. In one of the opening scenes the young architect's boss throws out a 3D model building design he has made - which just happens to be an interpretation of a Shikumen building. When he was young, his beloved grandparents lived in the Shikumen and he spent much time there.

While unpacking some old boxes the architect uncovers a C90 cassette tape given to him by his first love - a schoolgirl classmate. In flashbacks we see that the friends would hang out daily and listen to music and dream about their future. Despite sitting right next to each other in class, the girl and boy strike up an odd way to communicate - they would record their voice onto tape and pass it to the other person who would record a reply the following day. It's a very sweet little moment. It's obviously much easier to simply talk face to face but recording secret messages onto tape is just the kind of playful thing that kids do all the time...or they did back when they had gigantic radio cassette recorders in the house.

But the joy is short lived as the pressure and reality of school exams forces the couple apart and they both move on with their lives. The scenes where the whole family gets involved to discuss the futures of the kids education is very revealing about the reality of exam pressure in China and Japan. In several scenes the young girl is seen to be physically abused by the father as she tries to exert her own will about her educational future.

Flash forward to the present day and this newly found cassette tape, which he never listened to at the time, reveals a secret that shocks him out of his shell. A revelation that could have changed his path and future life. If only he has listened to it at the time. For the rest of what happens you'll just have to see the film to enjoy it without me spoiling things.

I enjoyed this story the most. I found the characters were excellently written and the prominent use of retro devices such as the C90 cassette tape, old radio cassette player, plus Shikumen was a great nostalgia trip for me. I am also a sucker for a sweet romance story and this short story is close to how I felt watching the film Your Name - not a complete surprise given that they are both made by the same studio.

I've read other reviews that suggest Flavors of Youth is closely influenced by another Makoto Shinkai classic - 5 Centimeters per Second - which is another three-part anthology film. I'll be watching 5 Centimetres in the next few days so can compare myself.


Conclusion
By asking the same studio to make Flavors of Youth I can see that the creators were hoping to repeat the success of Your Name (officially the highest grossing anime of all time). I think only the final story comes vaguely close to the feel and emotions of Your Name. The first story is merely okay and you can completely skip the middle story.

Overall this is an okay collection of tales about finding oneself. I enjoyed the animation work and depictions of China, I also loved the nostalgia trips back to my own youth but tbh you could just watch the final story and tell yourself that it's a nice stop-gap until Shinkai releases his next film.

5/10
.