ABSTRACT
Juxtaposing the post-1990s youths in three Chinese documentary films—Du Haibin’s A Young Patriot (少年小趙, 2015); Zheng Qiong’s A Way Out (出路, 2016); and Li Yifan’s We Were SMART (殺馬特, 我愛你, 2019), this chapter introduces keywords that define one generation’s unique experience during China’s rise. It explores the conflicts, struggles, and developments of a generation that grew up during the best of times. Their encounters offer glimpses of diverse coming-of-age narratives, from cosmopolitan Bildung to the marginalization of migrant youths. Their collective experience reveals the social inequalities and tensions between rural and urban; nation and the world; self and society; virtual fantasy and social reality.
