This film is NOT based on actual events. It is very loosely based on the events of Iowa University graduate student Gang Lu, who suffered from an array of psychological disorders in addition to being a very gifted student in physics. The character portrayed in this film is completely fictitious on a number of different levels. One can dismiss the Nobel Prize angle immediately. Neither the real life Gang or this film character would have been nominated. The Nobel Prize committee never accepts a grad student as a candidate. Also, this is not really a prestigious school; most of the better students in the area of the physical sciences either attend an Ivy League graduate program, Stanford, or MIT, not Iowa University. So in these two instances, the film is not realistic in its screenplay. It is still good fiction, however, and should be judged for its emotional content and ability to keep you glued to your seat. It was tragic what happened to both Gang and to the protagonist in this film, but it is just a movie, and not real life. Winning a minor $2500 prize at a second-rate university is not the same as being nominated for the Nobel Prize. Making comparisons to Gang is not being honest; this character had a sweet and loving personality with no visible signs of mental illness, while Gang was just the opposite. That this person would commit the same acts that Gang committed with the upbringing and personality traits that Liu Xing has in the film is highly unlikely. Another university (hopefully one far more prestigious) would have snapped him up in a New York minute for their research staff. That is assuming his material was accurate as displayed in the film. Major universities get larger federal grants based on their researchers in many instances, so he would have been a sought-after commodity at several top schools. The writers of the screenplay do not seem to understand the mechanics of the American graduate school system and how it relates to research and funding. But despite that, the story, acting and production values still make this a worthwhile film to view.
