So, I Married My Anti-Fan

所以……和黑粉结婚了

China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.

Director: Gim Je-yeong 김제영 | 金帝荣.

Rating: 6/10.

Mainland actress Yuan Shanshan steals the spotlight in this formulaic but lightly played rom-com.

STORY

Shanghai, June, the present day. During the opening of the Shanghai Film Festival, Women Sense cub reporter Fang Miaomiao (Yuan Shanshan) happens by chance to take a picture of Hu Jun (Bak Chan-yeol) – a South Korean pop singer developing his career in China – arguing with his girlfriend, Ae Rim (Seo Ju-hyeon). His management company complains and Fang Miaomiao is fired by her boss (Aixinjueluo Qidi). Her flatmate Meizi (Sun Meijing) urges her to apologise to Hun Jun; she does, but that ends badly too. Still angry, Fang Miaomiao becomes an anti-fan, protesting against the singer and disrupting his events. When she becomes a news item, the head of Hu Jun’s Chinese management company, Wang (Luo Dahua), has the idea of capitalising on the publicity by shooting a reality show in which Hu Jun and Fang Miaomiao live together, with her taking on his day-to-day management. The show is a hit, and even includes a segment where the two go to Seoul on a business trip. Thinking he’s just a spoiled rich kid, Fang Miaomiao, who comes from an average family in a small town, learns more about Hu Jun as they spend time together. He also tells her that Ae Rim is now being romanced by his jealous singer friend Go Sang (Jiang Chao). As Fang Miaomiao and Hu Jun start to fall for each other, Wang cuts off the deal between his company and Fang Miaomiao’s magazine, thinking the relationship is turning Hu Jun’s head. Go Sang then makes his move.

REVIEW

The spotlight is meant to be on South Korean boybander-actor Bak Chan-yeol 박찬열 | 朴灿烈 but ends up on his co-star, Mainland actress Yuan Shanshan 袁姗姗, in fluffy rom-com So, I Married My Anti-Fan 所以……和黑粉结婚了. Financed by Mainlanders, shot by South Koreans, and set in Shanghai with a mostly Chinese cast, it’s another variation on the odd-couple rom-com, this time throwing together a hallyu pop star with a Chinese anti-fan from hell in a reality show where they live and work together. Totally manufactured, but written and played with a lightness that doesn’t ask much of its audience, it’s worth a look just for Yuan’s performance as a bipolar wannabe reporter that powers the otherwise 100% formulaic movie.

Better known for TV drama than on the big screen, Yuan, 29, played the pancake stall owner-turned-latex clad heroine in superhero parody Jianbing Man 煎饼侠 (2015) and she brings the same transformational energy to her role here, switching with ease from geeky specs to elegant outfits and from physically-charged rants to respectful timidness. It’s the type of role that’s pretty standard for Chinese comedy, and nothing that many other actresses haven’t done, but she does it well, and even manages to draw smidgeons of a performance from the metrosexual-looking Bak, 23, who, in his first leading film role, gamely voices his own Chinese dialogue but sounds and looks stiff throught. The only other Korean in the cast, 25-year-old singer-actress Seo Ju-hyeon 서주현 | 徐珠贤, aka Seo-hyeon 서현 | 徐玄, is equally stiff as his first love, while Mainland actor-singer Jiang Chao 姜潮 is as beefcakey as he was in the Tiny Times 小时代 quartet (2013-15). Amid a fairly small cast, the only performances to match Yuan’s come from the supporting roles, such as Xu Kejia 许可嘉 as the pop star’s day-to-day manager.

In his second feature, South Korean writer-director Gim Je-yeong 김제영 | 金帝荣 (rom-com Queen of the Night 밤의 여왕, 2013) shows no particular style but keeps things moving and turns in an okay package with d.p. Na Heui-seok 나희석 | 罗熙锡 (The Recipe 된장, 2010; Couples 커플즈, 2011) that makes Shanghai look good. With little in the way of a real plot, the screenplay, based on the manga comic of the same name 그래서 나는 안티 팬과 결혼했다 by Gim Eun-jeong 김은정 | 金恩贞, is basically a series of setpieces: a Spaghetti Western spoof as she tells him about a novel she’s writing, both of them accidentally handcuffed together in his flat, her dancing a tango in a bar, and so on. Surprisingly little time is spent on the mechanics of two opposites cohabiting – maybe because that plotline was already handled with considerable charm by actors Chen Bolin 陈柏霖 and Wang Luodan 王珞丹 in My Airhostess Roommate 恋爱前规则 (2009).

The film was previously known under the English title No One’s Life Is Easy. In China it grossed a ho-hum RMB81 million.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Bona Culture & Media (CN), Comedians Pictures (CN), NK Entertainment (CN). Produced by Comedians Pictures (CN), NK Entertainment (CN).

Script: Gim Je-yeong. Adaptation: Geng Guoxin, A Su. Manga comic: Gim Eun-jeong. Photography: Ha Heui-seok. Editing: Yang Dong-yeob. Music direction: Choi Jeong-ju, Park Jun-su. Production design: Choi Im. Art direction: Yu Sun-yeong, Yu Jeong-min. Costumes: Kim Da-jeong. Sound: Chen Wenzhan, Yi Seong-jin. Visual effects: Digital Studio 2L.

Cast: Bak Chan-yeol (Hu Jun), Yuan Shanshan (Fang Miaomiao), Jiang Chao (Go Sang), Seo Ju-hyeon (Ae Rim), Xu Kejia (Chi Xiang), Mei Nianjia (Qi Fei, Meizi’s boyfriend), Sun Meijing (Meizi, Fang Miaomiao’s flatmate), Zhao Weizhi (TV programme director), Luo Dahua (Wang, management-company head), Aixinjueluo Qidi (magazine editor), Jin Lingyan, Pei Jiejun (girls in red school uniform).

Release: China, 30 Jun 2016.