Tag: Zhang Tianai

The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan (前任4：英年早婚, Tian Yusheng, 2023)

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Why do people get married? In the fourth instalment of the popular Ex-Files rom-com franchise,The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan (前任4：英年早婚, qiánrèn 4: yīngnián zǎohūn) the guys are beginning to feel their age and settling down is now it seems on the cards but for Meng Yun (Han Geng) at least it’s not so simple despite receiving some unexpected medical news that undermines his sense of youth and masculinity. As a single urbanite, he’s become set in his ways and used to living alone while haunted by the spectres of old love and missed opportunities. 

Yu Fei (Zheng Kai) meanwhile has been somewhat bamboozled into proposing to his slightly younger girlfriend of three years Ding Dian (Zeng Mengxue) who is herself on the fence about the idea of marriage. The couple end up opting for what they describe as a “marriage cooling off period” but is really just a trial run while they figure out if they can actually live together. To begin with it’s more difficult than expected as both struggle to transition from “dating” to “settled”, each on their best behaviour at home and engaged in a constant game of oneupmanship over household chores trying to prove how considerate they are to each other which is as they begin to realise exhausting. But deciding to just be themselves doesn’t quite work either as they quickly descend into slobbishness with no one taking care of domestic tasks each assuming it’s the other’s responsibility.

To try and work out their differences they come up with a solution that’s both very mature and not in turning their family meetings into drinking games in which the person who recognises they’re in the wrong has to take a shot. The kinds of things they argue about are the usual points of tension like leaving the cap off the toothpaste or waiting too long to wash your smalls, though before long more serious cracks start to appear such as in their different approaches to money management with Ding Dian keen to set up a household joint account and Yu Wei resentful of what he sees as an intrusion into his financial freedom in order to force him to be more responsible about his spending. 

It’s this idea of “freedom” that seems to be keeping the guys from settling down, but as someone later says to Meng Yun it might be his desire for “freedom” that’s holding him back. An ageing Casanova, Meng Yun is hounded by his mother about getting married while otherwise lamenting his descent into solitude and acknowledging that he may now be so afraid of a return to loneliness following a breakup or else a change in his routine that he’s losing interest in starting new relationships which is one reason he’s badgered into blind dates with women looking to get married. He’s not sure if marriage really is the “tomb of love” as some describe it, but can’t see what the point is or why it’s any different to being in a longterm committed relationship without a certificate to prove it. 

In many ways his battle is with looming middle age as he begins to wonder if he’s too old to change his ways and if solitude is what he’s choosing for the rest of his life, while Yu Wei conversely wrestles with the demands of adult responsibility in learning to accept a little more give and take in his life. The film flirts with the idea that Meng Yun may get back together with one of his many exes, in particular Lin Jia (Kelly Yu Wenwen) who seems to be the one that got away, but refreshingly falls back on the idea that some things aren’t meant to last and it’s better to let them go. Meanwhile, Meng Yun is himself a little sexist and chauvinistic in his dealings with his many blind dates, failing to consider the woman he’s talking to may be a doctor rather than a patient rushing out to meet him after undergoing major surgery and hurt after being rejected out of hand for his educational background and financial profile despite doing more or less the same thing himself scrolling past women who don’t match his ideals. 

Both men are in many ways selfish and immature, but also becoming more aware of their flaws and on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to the possibility of change. Despite having met a potential soulmate in philosophical lawyer Liu Liu, Meng Yun can’t decide if it’s worth the risk of abandoning his solitude or if he’ll ever be able to give up the ghost of lost love and open himself to a greater emotional intimacy. A little more melancholy than previous instalments, the film ponders urban loneliness and the trade-offs involved in a life of “freedom” while leaving the door ajar for middle-aged love in the life of the increasingly lovelorn Meng Yun. 

The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan is currently previewing in UK cinemas ahead of a 6th October opening courtesy of CineAsia.

International trailer (English subtitles)

I Belonged to You (从你的全世界路过, Zhang Yibai, 2016)

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A collection of lovelorn souls meditate on love and loneliness in Zhang Yibai’s adaptation of a series of popular short stories by internet author Zhang Jiajia. Perhaps misleadingly titled, I Belonged to You (从你的全世界路过, Cóng nǐ de Quánshìjiè Lùguò) is less tearjerking melodrama than humorous exploration of romantic disaffection in the modern society in which even love itself has perhaps become both duplicitous cliché and an unattainable dream. For smug DJ Chen Mo (Deng Chao), being in love means staying together forever, but for his co-host/longterm girlfriend Xiaorong (Du Juan) adolescent love has already run its course. Thoroughly fed up with his empty, somewhat cheesy words of advice to lovelorn callers, she abruptly breaks up with him live on air. 

Two years later Chen Mo hosts the show alone amid declining ratings, listeners now fed up with with his total capitulation to depressed cynicism and advertisers getting ready to pull the plug. Xiaorong has joined station management but seemingly has little desire to save the show, later entering into an unwise bet that should Mo be able to climb to the number one spot, she’ll marry him but if he fails he must parade through the town with a sign reading “I’m an idiot” which, as we later discover, is a callback to their uni days when they were young and in love. Mo laments that the only couple still together from way back when is his best friend Chubby (Yue Yunpeng), who currently lives with him, and the beautiful Yanzi (Liu Yan) whose heart he won being the only person willing to defend her when she was accused of thievery. Pure-hearted, Chubby does every job going, even allowing people to punch him for monetary compensation, so he can send the money to Yanzi who is currently abroad travelling the world. Mo seems fairly unconvinced by the arrangement, but also regards Chubby as his “anchor”, that as long as Chubby loves Yanzi, they are all still young and love is real.  

His other roommate, meanwhile, his cousin Shiba (Yang Yang) is being semi-stalked by the local police woman whose constant flirting he doesn’t seem to have picked up on. As we later discover, Officer Lychee (Bai Baihe) has also been disappointed in love, previously jilted at the altar by a foreign boyfriend who apparently did a disappearing act, but has apparently maintained her faith eventually entering to a wholesome relationship with the eccentric young man who spends all his time inventing new gadgets. Despite the evidence, however, Mo remains cynical and hung up on Xiaorong who seems to have defied the narrative destiny of their uni love story. Describing him as immature, she feels as if something changed with Mo during the radio show, that somewhere along the way he lost his sense of warmth. “It’s only when we are filled with love that our show passes on love. When we feel lonely we can’t warm anybody up” she tearfully explains taking over the broadcast, adding that Chen Mo might be the loneliest of all in his false bravado and prickly tendency to make off-colour jokes as a childish defence mechanism. 

Ironically, however, the ratings start to pick up thanks to mild-mannered intern Birdie’s (Zhang Tianai) unexpected outburst at a disgruntled caller who took Mo to task for his terrible, unsympathetic advice for his romantic problem. Silently in love with Chen Mo after his certain presence on the radio saved her from loneliness, Birdie does her best to “save” him, even later giving up her dream of romance to try and help him win back Xiaorong only for him to get the message too late, realising that Xiaorong has outgrown him and they’re on different paths while maybe what he needed was a spiky little bird to peck him out of his shell. 

Chen Mo called his show “Passing Through Your World” as if in acknowledgement that some people are supposed to brush past each other meeting only for a moment, but naively hoping to encounter someone that would make the world brighter just by being in it. Shooting with a whimsical arthouse lens, Zhang opens in a rainy Chongqing as if reflecting the loneliness and despair which plague each of his protagonists who each in one way or another find solace in the presence of Chen Mo through his radio show acting as a beacon for lonely souls everywhere, before ending in bright sunshine and golden fields leaving the neon-tinted city behind for a dream of a more innocent love. Nevertheless, not everyone gets their happy ending, and there’s something in the film’s most romantic gesture being the drawing of an umbrella on cutesy mural to help a lost little girl weather the storm. A breezy stroll through urban malaise and millennial love, I Belonged to You ultimately sheds its cynicism for a pure hearted faith in romantic destiny but does so with a healthy dose of maturity in acknowledging that the path of true love never did run smooth.

I Belonged to You streams in the US Feb. 12 to 18 as part of Asian Pop-Up Cinema’s “Happy Lunar New Year!”

Original trailer (English subtitles)

The Captain (中国机长, Andrew Lau, 2019)

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The Captain poster 2Chinese cinema loves the miraculous, but it loves stories of ordinary heroism even more. Inspired by real events which occurred on 14th May 2018, not quite 18 months before the film’s release, The Captain (中国机长, Zhōngguó Jīzhǎng), is a classic story of everything going right after everything goes wrong. Implicitly praising the efficacy of a system which values military precision over individualistic handwringing, Lau’s dramatisation reserves its admiration for those who keep their cool and follow the rules in the midst of extremely difficult circumstances.

Beginning in true disaster movie fashion, Lau opens with a brief yet humanising sequence which sees the otherwise austere pilot Captain Liu (Zhang Hanyu) say goodbye to his little girl, promising he’ll be back in time for her birthday party that very evening. Thereafter, everything is super normal. The pilots and cabin crew arrive at the airport, get to know each other if they haven’t flown together before, and run through their drills. The cabin crew laugh through the “we’re professionally trained and are confident we can ensure your safety” mantra rehearsed in case of emergency hoping they’ll never actually have to say it, but disaster strikes a little way into the flight when the windscreen cracks, eventually shattering and sucking rookie co-pilot Liang Peng (Oho Ou) halfway out.

Of course, the story is already very well known so we can be sure that the plane will land safely with no one (seriously) hurt, but it’s still an incredibly tense time for all. As Liu explains to Liang Peng, everything in the cockpit must be done with the upmost precision. It’s when you get complacent that things will start to go wrong. A former air force pilot, Liu is not the most personable of captains with his permanently furrowed brow and serious demeanour, but he’s exactly the sort of person you need in a crisis, calmly and coolly making rational decisions under intense pressure. While he’s doing his best at the controls, the entirety of the Chinese air aviation authorities are springing into action to try and ensure the plane’s safe landing – airspace is cleared, the military monitor the situation, and the fire and ambulance services are already on standby in the hope that Liu can safely land at Chengdu airport.

Keeping the tension high, Lau resists the temptation to sink into melodrama, more or less abandoning a hinted at subplot about stoical cabin supervisor Nan’s (Quan Yuan) possibly unhappy home life while introducing a fairly random diversion in a group of aircraft enthusiasts furiously tracking the plane’s trajectory online and then heading out to the airport in the hope of witnessing a miracle. Before the potential catastrophe takes hold, the crew have to deal with unpleasant passengers intent on throwing their weight around, nervous flyers, and people travelling with small children, but do their best to provide service with a smile even in the most trying of circumstances. They are frightened too, but have to muster all of their professionalism in order to be strong for the passengers, keeping them calm and preventing them from creating additional problems while the guys in the cockpit try to find a solution that keeps everyone safe.

Released for National Day, The Captain’s brand of propagandistic patriotism is of the more subtle kind, only really rearing its head during the final moments during which awkward captain Liu suddenly starts singing a folksong in praise of the motherland while celebrating their lucky escape on its one year anniversary in the time honoured fashion of a group hot pot. Nevertheless, the point it’s making is in the virtues that Liu states after landing, valuing life and duty. Liu landed the plane because he followed procedure perfectly, kept his head, and made well-informed decisions. A master of understatement, his speech on landing is simply an apology to his passengers that he wasn’t able to take them safely to Lhasa. After waiting for the investigators, he thinks the passengers are hanging round outside the plane because they’re angry and want an explanation, little realising they are just overjoyed to be alive and wish to thank him for saving all their lives. A tense tale of selfless heroism aided by good training and immense professionalism, The Captain is a subtle endorsement of an authoritarian system but also of the importance of keeping cool in a crisis as the best weapon against catastrophe.

The Captain is currently on limited release in UK cinemas courtesy of Cine Asia, and in the US from Well Go USA.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

https://youtu.be/Vy3nA6VDGyw