"HARD PROBLEMS"
Starring the 2006 U.S. IMO team, including Alex Zhai
Released: April 11, 2008 (DVD),
Jan. 8, 2008 (film premiere)

WATCH THE TRAILER

Not only do you get to see Uni student Alex Zhai on camera, but this is an excellent documentary that will keep you interested and entertained until the end.

THE AVERAGE STUDENT begins learning math in kindergarten. But there are no average students in the recently released documentary film “Hard Problems: The Road to the World’s Toughest Math Contest.”

Instead, the film focuses on the elite world of high school math prodigies, following six highly talented students, including Uni’s own Alex Zhai, who represent the United States at the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The film is directed by George Paul Csicsery, who has produced four other documentaries on math, such as “N is a Number.”

While Csicsery’s other math films were about professional mathematicians, “Hard Problems” is the first time he deals with a teenage group.

As we observe the U.S. team members studying math books, working together, and listening to lectures from their coaches, one question is always present: Do they have the potential to win gold medals at the 47th IMO and bring the U.S. to first place?

The documentary begins on April 19, 2006, in San Jose, Calif., in a quiet and tense classroom, where a group of students prepare to take the prestigious United States of America Mathematical Olympiad exam. Meanwhile, around the country approximately 500 other students are taking the USAMO in similar environments.

The USAMO is the next-to-last step in the selection process for the U.S. IMO team. Once the USAMO is over, only the 12 highest scorers advance to the Team Selection Test, given during the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program at the University of Nebraska. The six competitors with the highest TST and USAMO combined scores qualify for the U.S. team.

When the students go to the University of Nebraska to take the TST, the suspense grows to see which of the 12 students will be able to move on to the last and final challenge: the IMO.

When the TST finishes, some students are unsure of how they performed, while others are very confident. From the expression of the test takers, it is clear who will be on the team.

Besides Zhai, who had just finished his sophomore year at Uni, the other members are Zach Abel of Greenhill School, Addison, Texas; Zarathustra “Zeb” Brady of Magnolia Science Academy, Reseda, Calif.; Ryan Ko of Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H.; Yi Sun of The Harker School, San Jose, Calif.; and Arnav Tripathy of East Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, N.C.

As depicted in the film, each of the six has his own interesting back story. According to Zhai, he first became involved in math contests when his teacher introduced him and his parents to a middle school competition called MathCounts. (As a Uni subfreshman, Zhai was a member of the Illinois team that won the MathCounts national title, earning him an appearance on ESPN and a trip to the White House.)

“When he was 6 or 7 years old, he enjoyed doing mental calculation, like addition, subtraction, multiplication, things like that,” Alex’s mother, Yan Lin, says in the film. “He also enjoyed discovering the patterns of the numbers, like he found the difference between consecutive numbers squared is the addition of those two numbers.”

“I sort of first discovered really the subject of math, instead of being taught random stuff at school,” Zhai tells Csicsery. “That’s basically how I learned, just by reading and working on problems that I thought were interesting.”

Zhai is shown playing chess, one of his interests outside of math. His teammates also have other talents or activities: Yi Sun made all five science Olympiads in the world (biology, chemistry, physics, math, computer science), Tripathy can be considered a professional piano player, Brady does programming, and Abel won a conference championship in pole vaulting.

This film shows that hard work, talent, and passion is what helps people achieve their potential. Despite their other interests, every member on the U.S. team has a dying passion for math.

Math is their “caffeine” and they can’t live without it. As Joanne Mason, Yi Sun's math teacher, says on camera, these students have the ability to put all their concentration into math and ignore their surroundings.

“I don’t do math competitions for the competition; I do it in order to improve myself and explore new things,” Zhai says. “To me math is more exploration than knowledge.”

Abel describes this mindset well in one of his appearances. He says he would stay up late every night reading math textbooks and working on math problems. He would have to be told by his parents to finish his regular homework or even be asked whether he ate his lunch or dinner. It was Abel’s hard work and passion that made him one of the six members of the U.S. IMO team.

Yet when the students travel to Slovenia to compete in the IMO, they are nervous and apprehensive about how they will do, despite their passion and knowledge.

The IMO is a two-day test that presents students with six challenging problems. During the first day, students have four hours and 30 minutes to work on the first three problems. The next day, they are given the same amount of time to finish the last three problems. Each problem is worth seven points, making a perfect score 42 points.

As 498 students from 90 countries sit down for the first day, the atmosphere becomes tense. Everyone wants to get a good start and score as many points as possible.

BLEEP! The whistle blows, and off the pencils go, scribbling on paper. Everyone is in deep thought. Some people pull their hair, while others, like Zhai, spin their pencils with their thumb.

BLEEP! The test ends, and it seems that the U.S. members have done pretty well, even though they didn't get all the problems.

On the second day, however, the U.S. members are tired. Zhai is so exhausted that he falls off his bed on top of Brady the night before.

The Americans aren't the only ones who are tired. The film shows people in the testing room resting their heads on their desks and closing their eyes moments before the exam starts.

When the clock starts, there is just silence, and dramatic music plays on the soundtrack. Students slowly take out their exams and resume testing.

When the IMO finally ends, viewers can't help but feel empathy and suspense as the team members discuss their performances. We wonder the same questions that they do: How many problems did they solve, and how many points did they score?

This film is an excellent documentary that makes strong impressions. I found it inspiring to watch Csicsery’s presentation of Zhai, my fellow Uni student and someone I know closely. Zhai is easy to root for — a modest, likable person who competes in order to deepen his understanding of math and not simply to win awards.

Csicsery does a great job emphasizing that if you work hard, have talent, and are passionate for whatever you do, you will be able to achieve your dream goals.

The film also shows that there is always room for improvement. The U.S. IMO team consisted of six very talented boys who were among the best and brightest in the country. But when it came to the IMO, Zhai and his teammates could not solve all six of the problems. As a team, they placed fifth. China won the IMO, and Russia finished second.

Despite winning a silver medal and missing a gold by just five points, Zhai tells Csicsery that he is determined to improve.

“There were a lot of things I could have done,” he says. “It wouldn’t have been that hard to just get five more points. I do have next year.”

Zhai returned to the U.S. team in 2007 to win a gold medal at the 48th IMO, held in Hanoi, Vietnam.

“Hard Problems” is not without its flaws. For example, the documentary would have benefited from comparing the Americans with their Chinese or Russian counterparts.

But that’s a minor concern. Whether the U.S. finish is a happy or sad ending for you, the team’s performance is superior and will leave you congratulating the six U.S. members.

You don’t have to like math and you don’t have to understand it to watch “Hard Problems.” This is a documentary that will inspire anyone who watches it.

“Hard Problems” was released April 11 on DVD. It is distributed by the Mathematical Association of America and is available for purchase ($24.95) at Amazon.com, the Art of Problem Solving Web site, and the MAA Online Bookstore.

“Hard Problems” DVD AT A GLANCE

• Starring: Alex Zhai, Zach Abel, Zarathustra “Zeb” Brady, Ryan Ko, Yi Sun, Arnav Tripathy
• Director: George Paul Csicsery
• Genre: Documentary
• Rated: G
• Runtime: 82 min.
• Price: $24.95
• DVD special features: 45-minute classroom version of the film; bonus features on mathematicians in finance (11:16), families and schooling (15:55), girls and the IMO (17:03), history of the IMO (7:12); an 82-page PDF containing IMO problems and answers
• Release date: Jan. 8, 2008 (film premiere); April 11, 2008 (DVD)
• Summary: The true story of six American high school students, including Uni High's Alex Zhai, as they prepare for and compete in the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad
• External links: Official site, director's site