Back in 1989, Lu Gengxu, who came from Yingkou in Liaoning province, was enrolled at his dream school, the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University. However, during his four years there, he realized that something was much more important than academic study - finding a girlfriend.

"Teenage romance was prohibited in middle school and high school, which made it valuable at university," says Lu, 43. "But there were many more boys than girls at university. It was hard to have a girlfriend, especially the beautiful ones."

Then he noticed that boys who could play guitar and sing were surrounded by girls. That motivated him to learn guitar and songwriting, which made him competitive among his schoolmates.

After graduation, he worked for an architecture company for two years but he decided to give up being an architect and established the music group Water and Wood in 2001, with Li Jian, who studied electronic engineering at Tsinghua University.

"I thought singing and songwriting were just ways to attract girls but I became obsessed with music," he says.

When everyone he knows objected to his decision to quit his job, Lu became an independent singer-songwriter. Lu wrote songs about their lives on the campus, especially the love stories and friendships among schoolmates.

With their debut album, Lifelong With You, the duo became one of the most popular acts in the country.

His life experience and nostalgic mood for his university years have now become a movie, Forever Young, which is Lu's directorial debut and will be released at the end of this year.

To go with the nostalgic mood of the movie, Lu will also kick off a national tour with the same title, Forever Young, on Nov 14 in Beijing. He has invited established singers, such as Cui Jian, Chyi Chin and Yip Sai-wing, whose songs inspired Lu during his years at university.

He tells the story through the eyes of a middle-aged man, who has an ordinary job and a boring life. One day, the man receives a phone call from his ex-girlfriend at university, which disturbs his peaceful life and takes him back to his life at university.

According to Lu, the script, written four years ago, contains real stories about him and his schoolmates.

"I have had the idea of making a movie for years. I like director Jiang Wen's first movie, In the Heat of the Sun, and I wanted to make such a movie to tell stories of people of my age and to talk about our youth," says Lu. "Physically I am getting old but I am still young in my heart. I miss those crazy years, when I was madly in love and in pain."

Once his idea was born, Lu couldn't wait to tell his old friends, such as Li Jian.

"When he told me about his plan to make the movie, I was very interested because all the stories told in the movie were familiar to me and I miss our days (together)," says Li, who left the group in 2002 and was later replaced by another Tsinghua University graduate, Miao Jie. Both Li and Miao played roles in the movie.

"Those who will perform with us in the tour were our idols at university. We listened to their songs and imagined we were them," Li says.

However, it was hard for a first-time director to find investors and Lu even considered selling his house to raise the money. With script in hand, Lu went to many film companies and talked about his story.

"I understand that it's risky to invest money in someone who had no movie-making experience. But I have to do it because it's my dream," he says.

The experience took him back to the years of pursuing his music dream when everything started from zero.

"Everything was new for me but I was happy because I regained my passion, like a young man," he says.

chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/10/2013 page15)