Bad Genius

An exam heist film from Thailand, taking its shape directly from heist cinema: assembling the team, the rehearsal, the countdown, the thing that goes wrong, the escape. Lynn is a straight-A student. After entering an expensive private school on a scholarship she starts feeding answers in exams; as the system grows there is a price list, piano-fingering signals and an organisation. Eventually it becomes an operation on an international exam, exploiting a different time zone. That last part is real: in 2014 cram schools in China, Korea and Thailand hired people to sit the exam in an earlier time zone, memorise the questions and pass them on during the break. When it was uncovered, the scores were cancelled. Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying plays Lynn. The film became the biggest international success in Thai cinema, taking over thirty million dollars in China alone. Its real subject is not cheating but class: who can afford to make a mistake and who cannot. The pace is startlingly high for anyone who likes a thriller structure; for anyone wanting realism, some stretches are too polished.