New York New York

纽约纽约

China/Hong Kong, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 105 mins.

Director: Luo Dong 罗冬.

Rating: 4/10.

Wannabe noirish period tale, largely set in Shanghai, is dramatically and emotionally still-born.

STORY

New York, 1994. American Chinese businessman Mi (Miao Qiaowei) and his associate Ruan Yujuan (Du Juan) arrive from Shanghai to sort out the bankruptcy of Mi’s ambitious Manhattan project, the Grand Hotel Shanghai. They are met by Mi’s lawyer, Downey (Peter Greene). After an argument with Mi, Ruan Yujuan leaves their hotel and calls an old friend, Lu Tu (Ruan Jingtian). Shanghai, 1993. Ruan Yujuan meets Lu Tu for the first time at the Gordon Hotel Shanghai, where he works as head bellboy and she’s using the laundry service. Later on she meets him again on his way home from work, and they end up having sex at his flat. One day, Lu Tu and his disciple Kun (Yang Xuwen) pick up Mi, a Gordon Hotel regular, from the airport. Later, Lu Tu sees Ruan Yujuan outside a modelling agency run by a friend of his, Madame Jin (Ye Tong), and then at a bar, New York New York, where he and his friends drink. Much of the talk is about moving to the US. Mi, who needs to recruit 200 Shanghai hotel staff for his New York hotel project, is also there; he approaches Lu Tu, who says the US is the last place he wants to go to. However, when Mi has to return to New York, Lu Tu agrees to help recruit bellboys; as a thankyou, Mi loans him his expensive car. Ruan Yujuan works as a tour guide, and as a hostess for her indebted mother, but has little money herself. Lu Tu convinces Madame Jin to take her on as a personal assistant. Ruan Yujuan continues to sleep with Lu Tu but says she’ll never marry him as she has ambitions of her own. When Mi returns, Lu Tu says he’d like to work for him in New York after all. When Ruan Yujuan, after a bruising encounter with a Chinese Thai businessman at Madame Jin’s club, asks Lu Tu to take her with him, he refuses. So Ruan Yujuan approaches Mi directly.

REVIEW

A wannabe noirish melodrama that’s mostly set in early-1990s Shanghai, New York New York 纽约纽约 is about as original as its title. A love story centred on the era when China was mesmerised by opportunities in the US, the film suffers from a fatal lack of internal drama as the protagonists hang around photogenic settings and exchange platitudes about life, love and ambition. Mainland actress-model Du Juan 杜鹃 looks suitably vampish when in the right clothes and lighting but generates no sexual chemistry with Taiwan actor Ruan Jingtian 阮经天 to propel the personal drama. A proper, through-composed score might have helped a little, but in general this directing debut by Shanghai-based d.p. Luo Dong 罗冬 emerges still-born.

It’s hardly a surprise to see the name of Hong Kong director-producer Guan Jinpeng 关锦鹏 [Stanley Kwan] prominently billed as executive in charge of production 监制, as this kind of high-style/low-content period exercise is his forte. (Luo was a still photographer on Guan’s 2001 Mainland-shot gay drama Lan Yu 蓝宇, before going on to be d.p. on films like Shanghai Trance 海上梦境 [2008], Sweet Heart 麻辣甜心 [2010] and Decrepit Dream 残梦 [2012].) Most of the key crew – d.p., editor, composers, stylists – is also from Hong Kong and, though the film is funded by Mainland major Huayi Brothers, it has the look of a modest independent production whose style is achieved on a budget. It’s notable, for a start, how the moody lighting is only fully used in scenes between the two leads.

The equally bitty screenplay is credited to two Mainlanders, Ha Zhichao 哈智超 – a Beijing playwright whose only other film credit is the entertaining rom-com Mr. & Mrs. Single 隐婚男女 (2011), with Chen Yixun 陈奕迅 [Eason Chan] and Liu Ruoying 刘若英 [René Liu], based on his own play – and Lu Nei 路内 (pen name of Shang Junwei 商俊伟), whose novel was the basis for the offbeat period comedy Young Love Lost 少年巴比伦 (2015). Ha and Lu’s script is a stop-start affair, with no clear dramatic arc and full of self-obsessed characters who are hardly sympathetic. As in the much more thoughtful American Dreams in China 中国合伙人 (2013) – in which, coincidentally, Du made her debut – the “American fever” of the time is later discredited – here, with a corny postscript in 2003 Shanghai that underlines returning to one’s roots. But the bigger problem is that the movie never establishes who the audience should be rooting for.

After showing some presence and passion in Kill Time (2016), Ruan slips back here into his usual anodyne mode; the willowy Du (American Dreams in China; Lost in Hong Kong 港囧, 2015) lacks the acting skills to improve on a foggily-written character. Hong Kong veteran Miao Qiaowei 苗侨伟 gives the film some occasional heft as a businessman, but it’s fellow Hong Konger, Ye Tong 叶童 [Cecilia Yip], now in her early 50s, who pumps some blood into the drama with her bravado turn as a hard-arsed boss lady.

CREDITS

Presented by Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Huayi Brothers International (HK).

Script: Ha Zhichao, Lu Nei [Shang Junwei]. Original story: Wei Shao’en, Lu Nei [Shang Junwei]. Photography: Li Zhihua. Editing: Chen Zhiwei [Andy Chan]. Music: Yu Yiyao, Kong Yijia. Theme song vocal: Xu Jiaying. Art direction: Guo Xiu, Yao Jun. Costumes: Lv Fengshan. Styling: Zhang Shuping [William Chang]. Art direction consultation: Qiu Weiming [Alfred Yau]. Sound: Du Duzhi. Visual effects: Yi Nuo, Li Zifei.

Cast: Ruan Jingtian (Lu Tu), Du Juan (Ruan Yujuan), Miao Qiaowei (Mi/Mr. Money), Ye Tong [Cecilia Yip] (Madame Jin), Peter Greene (Downey, lawyer), Yang Xuwen (Kun), Shi An (Dai Wei/David, Lu Tu’s colleague), Ma Yanting (Shasha), Yuan Wenkang, Huang Ling, Shao Wen, Ouyang Jing [MC Jin].

Release: China, 15 Apr 2016; Hong Kong, tba.