The situation is getting worse by the day, so why don’t we pause and watch a film.

Many have asked, so here is my view.

What is the ultimate film to watch right now to understand the ongoing trade war between the US and China? – American Dreams in China (2013) by Peter Chan.

One of my favourite contemporary directors, it’s like Peter almost predicted this film would be needed one day, for people who don’t understand what is going on to understand better.

What I do in research and enterprise, I call it the ‘grassroots film diplomacy’; but I simply cannot take full credits for coining this particular term. It’s inspired by all the great filmmakers from around the world, nurtured by the annual French film festival in Hong Kong when I was growing up. These great filmmakers predicted the future, summarised them in a compelling story, and they have made a library for us to browse when we get confused at any point in our history.

I always think that politicians should watch more films, not just films from their own country but from around the world. It only takes about 2 hours, it could help them to try and see the perspective from their counterparts. It does not matter how much we disagree with each other, in order to have a better debate, it’s important to see from another’s eyes or at least try to.

Many Chinese (not strictly in a national sense, it refers to the global community here) have seen all the famous Hollywood films, even Saving Private Ryan. In fact this film has been used as a metaphor in some official speeches if I recall it rightly.

If the purpose of a debate is to reach consensus, while in a normal boardroom setting where men are guarded by their ties, it might not be the best setting for such purpose to be actualised. Watching a film, however, is a different environment. The cinema is the best space for mediation. We are less guarded, more relaxed. Nowadays, you can even have a glass of wine to accompany your viewing at cinemas such as Everyman.

An official selection by the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013, American Dreams in China is not just a story about success, but underneath it’s about disillusionment, and losing oneself in return for winning in the market race.

Three friends — dreamers from Beijing in the 1980s — try to carve out a space for themselves in a world shaped by American ambition, but filtered through Chinese realities. They start an English-language training school, hoping to sell not just a skill — but an idea: that mastering English is mastering the future.

But the question is never whether they succeed — it’s whether they survive themselves.

Because this is not a story of East vs West — that’s too easy. It’s about what happens when you internalise someone else’s dream so deeply you forget to question who benefits from it.

They do succeed in the end. Their business became the biggest education corporate in China, sending thousands of Chinese students to study in America every year. A true story.

The film is sharp when it stays small — in classrooms, in friendships, in betrayals. It falters when it tries to romanticise what is essentially an educational industrial complex. There’s tenderness here — in their youth, in their hunger. But also tragedy — in how easily idealism becomes product, friendship becomes brand, language becomes currency.

If you manage to watch this film somehow, I guarantee that you will understand the subtle feeling many Chinese people (in a national sense) have toward America. Once upon a time, it was their dream – but just like the friendship of the three entrepreneurs, it all fell apart.

Sometimes, money is not everything.

Globalisation has indeed failed, this film is currently not available in most countries outside of Greater China.

Netflix had it for a period of time for certain territories but the license ended – a renewal to join the global debate, perhaps?