Tiny Times 4

小时代  灵魂尽头

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 115 mins.

Director: Guo Jingming 郭敬明.

Rating: 7/10.

A satisfying conclusion to the BFF/fashionista saga that’s even, surprisingly, touching.

STORY

Shanghai, 2015. Bosom friends since high-school, Lin Xiao (Yang Mi), Gu Li (Guo Caijie), Nan Xiang (Guo Biting) and Tang Wanru (Xie Yilin) all continue to live together – along with Neil (Yi Hyeon-jae), Gu Li’s hippy gay Chinese-American cousin – in a splashy apartment. The flat is owned by Gu Li, who is chief financial officer of style bible ME Magazine, owned by her late father’s company Shenggu. The circulation of ME is falling, so publisher Gong Xun (Anatol Shanin) has appointed Ye Chuanping (Wang Lin), now head of Shenggu, as chief operating officer and demoted his son Gong Ming (Jin Rong) from editor-in-chief to art director. Ye Chuanping plans to open an office in Beijing and warns staff that redundancies at the Shanghai office could be imminent. She also holds Gu Li, whom she hates for dating her son Gu Yuan (Ke Zhendong), personally responsible for a RMB400 million hole in the magazine’s finances that occurred under the tenure of Gu Li’s father and on which Gu Li had signed off in the accounts. Ye Chuanping gives Gu Li two months to decide between paying off the deficit herself or signing over all her Shenggu shares. Meanwhile, Lin Xiao, who is Gong Ming’s assistant, has found a job in ME for Nan Xiang as her own assistant. Gu Li and her younger brother Gu Zhun (Ren Yankai), who owns 20% of Shenggu, try to discover how their father managed to waste RMB400 million by inspecting the four holdings that he willed to them: an abandoned factory, a racehorse farm, a log cabin in the country, and a painting he did himself. But none seems to contain any “hidden heritage”. Lin Xiao becomes engaged to Shaun, aka Lu Shao (Chen Xuedong), a blond-haired, blue-eyed Chinese-American male model who works for ME; he’s actually her onetime boyfriend Zhou Chongguang (Chen Xuedong), who was reported dead in the US but re-appeared after extensive plastic surgery and a change of identity. Gong Ming takes a liking to Nan Xiang and makes her his personal assistant, paving the way for her rise through the magazine’s ranks. Meanwhile, Gu Li learns she has cancer of the uterus and urgently needs an operation. Unhappy with Shaun’s engagement to Lin Xiao, Gong Xun orders her to be sacked; in a scuffle with the protesting Shaun, Gong Xun is injured and falls into a coma. The traumatised Shaun dumps Lin Xiao. Distressed by the news of her cancer, Gu Li calls Xi Cheng (Jiang Chao), Nan Xiang’s first love, and has a one-night stand with him. Next morning, Gu Yuan catches them together and a fight breaks out, with Gu Li’s other housemates joining in when Nan Xiang verbally attacks her. During the fighting, Tang Wanru falls on a glass table and gashes her cheek, leaving her with an ugly scar. Tang Wanru, Nan Xiang and Neil move out and Gu Li subsequently kicks out Lin Xiao. It seems as if the four girls’ longtime bosom friendship is finally over.

REVIEW

The hugging and crying and spatting and grandstanding continue in Tiny Times 4 小时代  灵魂尽头, the final instalment in the adaptation by writer-director Guo Jingming 郭敬明 of his best-selling trio of novels (2008-11) about the ups-and-downs of a quartet of BFFs from high school days to their late 20s in Shanghai’s fashion-magazine world. Shot back-to-back with Tiny Times III 小时代  刺金时代 – which brought in South Korean art director Jeon Su-a 전수아 | 全秀娥 (7 Days 세븐데이즈, 2007; The Berlin File 베를린, 2013) as well as new Mainland editor Qiao Aiyu 乔爱宇 (Love Retake 爱情不NG, 2013; The Old Cinderella 脱轨时代, 2014) – TT4 has the same improved slickness and greater directorial confidence but also a stronger dramatic arc than the previous movie. Despite the usual plot contrivances and sudden reversals – and the major problem of having to virtually edit out one of the lead players (Taiwan actor-singer Ke Zhendong 柯震东, who was involved in the Fang Zuming 房祖名 [Jaycee Chan] drugs scandal of autumn 2014) – it’s a satisfying conclusion to the whole saga and, yes, even strangely touching in its farewell to the four self-obsessed BFFs.

As the end titles remind the viewer, it’s been a nine-year-odyssey for Guo, now 32, that began with the serialisation of the first of the novels in 2006 and has ended with the release of TT4, which adapts the second half of the final novel Tiny Times 3.0 (小时代3.0  刺金时代 , 2011). In all, the whole eight-hour cycle has a striking consistency in the performances, as well as a general consistency in look and tone, partly by being shot in two big chunks rather than individually.

Born in Sichuan province in 1983, Guo moved to Shanghai in 2001, tapping into the city’s style-conscious culture and becoming an equally loved and loathed icon of the so-called Gen-80’s fashion-obsessed set, with his young-adult writings especially popular with teenie girls. When he undertook his own film adaptation of the Tiny Times novels, Guo hired collaborators from Greater China and beyond: there’s a heavy Taiwan influence to all the films (from its leading actors to technicians like d.p. Che Liangyi 车亮逸 [Randy Che] and stylist Huang Wei 黄薇 [Rosalie Huang]) as well as notable use of mixed-blood players (quarter-American Guo Biting 郭碧婷 [Bea Hayden], half-Welsh Feng Xiaoyue 凤小岳 [Rhydian Vaughan], half-Kiwi Jin Rong 锦荣 [Vivian Dawson], quarter-American Yi Hyeon-jae 이현재 | 李铉在) that gives the quartet a very international flavour when bolted on top of the already cosmopolitan Shanghai setting.

On top of all that is a thick layer of metrosexuality – epicene guys, girly gals, air-kiss emotions, a complete absence of actual sexual desire – that places the whole quartet in a fairytale world of Guo’s imagination, a contemporary version of mainstream Shanghai movies of the early 1930s and late 1940s. Despite being as shallow as a sparrow’s footbath, the Tiny Times films have nailed a particular time and moment in the evolution of New China’s pop culture, and Guo deserves kudos just for that.

In the final accounting, the quartet belongs to Taiwan actress Guo Caijie 郭采洁 [Amber Kuo] rather than top-billed Mainlander Yang Mi 杨幂. As the rich-bitch fashionista leader of the group, Guo has dominated the series with a totally assured performance that’s even – within the characters’ limited range – seen some genuine development. Yang has held her ground but seen her character stalled during the second half of the quartet, with more than her fair share of crying scenes. Guo Biting’s role has been come-and-go, though in TT4 she powers back in a couple of sequences that reveal her character’s ambition and conniving below the niceness. As the goofball of the group, Taiwan anti-style diva Xie Yilin 谢依霖 is just comic relief this time round, with a facial scar providing her character’s main drama. (Yes, looks are that important in the Tiny Times universe, even for the group’s chubbie.)

The men remain pretty cut-outs for a teenie female audience. With his role cut to shreds, his face obscured in most of his surviving scenes, and his name totally excised from the credits, Ke, second-billed in the other three films, is an often laughably invisible presence. Jin Rong, who took over Feng’s role as the magazine’s editor in TTIII, is even more of a bystander here, while Mainland actor-model Chen Xuedong 陈学东 is simply robotic as the resurrected lover of Yang’s character. In the film’s one overtly gay role, South Korean boybander-model Yi (known as Li Xianzai 李贤宰 in China) is just light relief this time. Among the more mature cast, Shanghai-born TV actress Wang Lin 王琳, 45, manages to act the entire ensemble off the screen in her few scenes as the magazine’s COO villainess.

Like the other films, but even more so here, TT4 works because of the chemistry between the lead actresses and Guo’s decision to play the whole fluffy saga absolutely straight, with no winks to the audience. It’s an object lesson in how style can be the message, when the assembled talent is right. The almost wall-to-wall score by Chinese American Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang] 王宗贤 binds together photography, design and performances into a seamless whole that only shows signs of padding in the final stretch. Guo’s reluctance to let go of his characters results in a final 20 minutes that’s light on plot and heavy on montages, soundtrack songs and flashbacks to the previous films, though a very clever visual-effects sequence near the end takes the movie back to the beginning of TT1 and an Auld Lang Syne number that would be corny if it wasn’t so charmingly played.

For the record, the whole quartet was made for a reported budget of some RMB150 million and grossed RMB1.8 billion in China. The first two films were shot back-to-back during Nov 2012 and Feb 2013 for RMB47 million and the last two during Dec 2013 and Mar 2014 for some RMB100 million. Aside from the second movie, each grossed consistently hunky numbers, without being mega-hits: RMB489 million, RMB297 million, RMB524 million and RMB489 million. A 152-minute “special edition” of TT4 was also released subsequently.

CREDITS

Presented by Zhejiang Huace Film & TV (CN), He Li Chen Guang Media (Beijing) (CN), Le Vision Pictures (Beijing) (CN), EE-Media (CN), Shanghai Entertainment Team Media Group (CN), Comic Ritz Film & TV Culture (Beijing) (CN), Beijing Zhonglian Chuandong Film & TV Culture (CN), Beijing Ruyi Xinxin Film Investment (CN), Shandong Jiabo Film & TV Culture (CN), Shanghai ZUI (CN), Beijing MaxTimes Cultural Development (CN), Mission Media Investment (Shanghai) (CN), Alibaba (Hangzhou) Cultural Innovation (CN).

Script: Guo Jingming. Novel: Guo Jingming. Photography: Che Liangyi [Randy Che]. Editing: Qiao Aiyu. Music: Wang Zongxuan [Nathan Wang]. Art direction: Jeon Su-a. Costume design: Huang Wei [Rosalie Huang], Xie Peiwen. Sound: Wang Yanwei. Visual effects: Yin Duanyang (VHQ). Executive direction: Chen Weiqiang, Huang Changzuo.

Cast: Yang Mi (Lin Xiao), Guo Caijie [Amber Kuo] (Gu Li/Lily), Chen Xuedong (Zhou Chongguang, Gong Ming’s younger step-brother; Lu Shao/Shaun), Guo Biting [Bea Hayden] (Nan Xiang), Xie Yilin (Tang Wanru/Ruby), Jin Rong [Vivian Dawson] (Gong Ming), Ren Yankai (Gu Zhun, Gu Li’s younger brother), Yi Hyeon-jae (Neil, Gu Li’s cousin), Jiang Chao (Xi Cheng), Wang Lin (Ye Chuanping, Gu Yuan’s mother), Shang Kan (Kitty), Anatol Shanin (Gong Xun), Zhang Zimu (Gu Li, aged 6), Ji Zihan (Lin Xiao, aged 6), Gu Qingfei (Nan Xiang, aged 6), Lu Lihui (Tang Wanru, aged 6), Dennis Kane (Zhou Chongguang, aged 7), Matthew Beaman (Gong Ming, aged 12), Chai Wei (Lin Xiao, aged 12), Tang Zhen (Gu Li, aged 12), Ma Yilin (Lin Xiao’s workmate), Xu Fangda (Gu Li’s driver), Li Bin (police interrogator), Chen Guanning (oncologist), Yang Yun (Tang Wanru’s mother), Hu Bo (hairdresser), Zeng Ziyao (kindergarten teacher), Yuan Jiangyi (flowers deliveryman), Zhu Zhen (Gong family security guard), Peng Mengying (ME Magazine receptionist), Zhu Hanyan (ME Magazine employee), Wan Weidong (light show manager), Ke Zhendong (Gu Yuan, Gu Li’s boyfriend), Bao Chunlai (himself).

Release: China, 9 Jul 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 22 Sep 2015.)