MBA Partners

梦想合伙人

China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 100 mins.

Director: Jang Tae-yu 장태유 | 张太维.

Rating: 6/10.

Super-slick, rom-commy entertainment is kept on course by actress Yao Chen’s commanding lead.

STORY

Shanghai, 2000. The daughter of a shopkeeper (Gao Jie) in a small southern township, Lu Zhenxi (Yao Chen) studies hard and makes it into a university in Shanghai, along with her best friend from childhood, Niu Juncheng (Li Chen), who secretly loves her. Lu Zhenxi falls for a student in the year above her – Zhao Shuyu (Wang Yibo) – who ends up going to the US in 2004. The following year she is accepted by New York’s Lehman College and, to make ends meet, sends counterfeit bags on the street. Shocked, Zhao Shuyu splits with her; and she’s then arrested by the police. Her professor, Meng Xiaojun (Guo Fucheng), posts bails for her and she returns home to China, her “American Dream” shattered. Her father encourages her to return to Shanghai, where she re-meets Niu Juncheng and joins the elite China Asia International Business School where existing entrepreneurs can hone their skills. Meng Xiaojun is teaching there and she successfully applies to be his assistant, which allows her to sit in on some lectures. Two other women are in Meng Xiaojun’s class: Wen Qing (Hao Lei), managing director of a department store chain, and Gu Qiaoyin (Tang Yan), who claims to be an MBA from Harvard. Wen Qing has a young child by a shakey relationship with her husband, Zou Zhiyun (Luo Jialiang), nominally the head of the company but actually reliant on her skills. Gu Qiaoyin is openly looking for a rich husband and is immediately targeted by businessman Peng Dahai, who’s in the same class. Lu Zhenxi has the idea of a shopping website devoted to women and starts up a company, Meimeiwang 美美网, helped by Niu Juncheng. Both Wen Qing and Gu Qiaoyin have also submitted similar business proposals to Meng Xiaojun as part of the course, so Meng Xiaojun tells the three women to work together on one joint proposal. That’s easier said than done – until the three unexpectedly bond one day, and join Lu Zhenxi in Meimeiwang. By 2009 Meimeiwang is the biggest online retailer of its kind, and Lu Zhenxi plans for a listing on NASDAQ.

REVIEW

One day a filmmaker will give Mainland actress Yao Chen 姚晨 the leading role her unique screen presence deserves, but until then we have MBA Partners 梦想合伙人 – unbelievably, her first leading role since the marvellous Love in Cosmo 摇摆de婚约 (2010), and her first substantial outing since playing the TV news editor in Caught in the Web 搜索 (2012). Too often the bridesmaid and too little the bride, the light comedienne has spent recent years either in cameos (Monster Hunt 捉妖记, 2015), among supporting ensembles (My Own Swordsman 武林外传, 2011; Everybody’s Fine 一切都好, 2016) or in highly billed but basically disposable roles (Control 控制, 2013; Firestorm 风暴, 2013). Though she’s also part of an ensemble in MBA Partners – all played by actresses in their 30s – she’s top-billed and unquestionably carries the picture, raising hopes that this utterly original talent, now 36, won’t end up as one of the Chinese film industry’s most under-exploited assets.

Already dubbed a distaff version of American Dreams in China 中国合伙人 (2013), MBA Partners is only similar in having a trio of leads and in hyping the superiority of the “Chinese Dream” over the discredited “American Dream”. There’s none of the long-limbed history of the earlier film, which was set across 25 years (starting in 1980) and celebrated a specific generation of Chinese enterpreneurs, nor its deeper message that China’s current obsession with the US is naive, unnecessary and bound to engender an aggressive response. MBA Partners is much more of a glossy soap opera, and hardly reaches down very far: our three heroines (country girl, business exec, golddigger) meet at a business school, take a catty dislike to each other, suddenly bond during a squabble in the Ladies, and then somehow manage to create a successful online retail site for women with a little backroom help from the country girl’s best male friend. It’s all totally unbelievable, super-slick, wish-fulfilment entertainment that’s held together by a cleverly constructed script, some decent performances and Yao’s commanding lead.

Though the film is totally China financed, and has a Mainland cast sprinkled with some Greater China names, much of the key behind-camera talent is actually South Korean, starting with director Jang Tae-yu 장태유 | 张太维, 43. A very successful TV drama director at SBS, Jang was snagged by lead producer Du Hua 杜华, CEO of Yuehua Entertainment, into an exclusive four-year contract following the huge success of his My Love from the Stars 별에서 온 그대 (2013), a romantic fantasy between an alien (played by Gim Su-hyeon 김수현 | 金秀贤) and an actress (Jeon Ji-hyeon 전지현 | 全智贤). (The TV drama, which finally began airing in China in Jan 2016 under the title 来自星星的你, has already inspired a homegrown Mainland version, My Amazing Boyfriend 我的奇妙男友, 2016.) As often when South Korean directors work in China, Jang brought in his own key crew, including d.p. Yi Du-man 이두만 | 李斗万 (Sector 7  7광구, 2011; As One 코리아, 2012) and editor/costume designer Gim Yeong-mi 김영미 | 金永美, as well as three writers (of whom the best known is Yu Yeong-a 유영아 | 刘英雅, As One) to add to the two Mainlanders – Yan Fengxiang 闫凤祥, 28, in her first credit, and the more experienced Chen Shu 陈舒, 34, following her sterling work on Brotherhood of Blades 绣春刀 (2014).

The surprise is that – unlike, say, A Wedding Invitation 分手合约 (2013) – the film doesn’t feel like an offshore South Korean movie. For whatever reasons, the setting, look, rhythm and performance styles all feel totally local rather than an outsider’s take on them. Perhaps there’s a tiny bit of extra gloss, or some better structuring in the script (especially in the way that past events belatedly impact on the present), that could be attributed to the South Korean side. But saw off the credits and no one would honestly know the film had any South Korean input at all.

Maybe because he doesn’t understand Chinese, Jang appears to have given his actors some freedom, judging by their relaxed performances. Chemistry between the three female leads (Yao, Tang Yan 唐嫣 and Hao Lei 郝蕾) is good on a filmy level, with Hao, 37, bringing some undertow to the team as an experienced middle-aged exec whose marriage is falling apart, while Tang, 32, eats up the glamour-puss role of a gold-digger who realises there’s more to business than finding a male meal-ticket. Yao, who balances maturity and offbeat sexiness in a single package, keeps the whole film on course as the central character and narrator. Starting out with her disillusion with the US – “There’s a saying: ‘If you love someone, send them to America, as it is heaven. If you hate someone, send them to America, as it is hell.'” – and sketching her own experiences there in a 10-minute intro, Yao’s character becomes a self-motivated Chinese success story on wheels. Her emotional arc is straight out of TV drama – childhood best friend holding a torch for her, etc. – but is surprisingly moving in the finale, largely thanks to Yao’s gently ironic, very open performance to that point.

Presumably cast as some kind of box-office insurance, Hong Kong’s Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok] manages to keep a straight face while wearing glasses and pretending to be a respected business lecturer. China’s Li Chen 李晨 keeps the childhood-friend role marginally believable without becoming metrosexual. Greater China veterans Gao Jie 高捷 [Jack Kao] and Lin Xue 林雪 [Lam Suet] cameo as relatives of Yao’s character to no special effect, while members of Sino-Korean boyband Uniq cameo as pretty delivery boys or, in the case of China’s Wang Yibo 王一博, as the first love of Yao’s character.

The film’s Chinese title (literally, “Dream Partners”) directly evokes that of American Dreams in China (“Chinese Partners”). At RMB81 million, however, its box-office was no match – merely respectable, and less than a sixth of Dreams‘ RMB500 million-plus. For the record, the hanja version of director Jang’s name, previously 张太侑, has been changed to 张太维 for his first Mainland movie, presumably as it looks less weird to Chinese eyes.

CREDITS

Presented by Yuehua Pictures (CN), Huahua Media (CN). Produced by Taiwei Film (CN).

Script: Yan Fengxiang, Yu Yeong-a, Chen Shu, Bak Seung-hye, Go Gyeong-sun. Photography: Yi Du-man. Editing: Gim Yeong-mi. Music: Tian Changye. Art direction: Li Zhuoyi. Costume design: Gim Yeong-mi. Visual effects: Xu Kexun, Xu Xianghe.

Cast: Yao Chen (Lu Zhenxi), Tang Yan (Gu Qiaoyin), Hao Lei (Wen Qing), Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Meng Xiaojun, professor), Li Chen (Niu Juncheng), Wang Yibo (Zhao Shuyu, Lu Zhenxi’s college boyfriend), Gim Seong-ju (Lucas), Gao Jie [Jack Kao] (Lu Zhenxi’s father), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (Lu Zhenxi’s uncle), Luo Jialiang (Zou Zhiyun, Wen Qing’s husband), Tang Zhenye [Ken Tong] (Zhou, head of investors’ club), Zheng Luoxi (Anqi, Zou Zhiyun’s mistress), Yu Xiaohui (Wang), Zhang Hui (head ruffian), Li Wenhan, Zhou Yixuan, Jo Seung-yeon (Meimeiwang delivery boys), Zhang Yao.

Premiere: Beijing College Student Film Festival (Opening Film), 9 Apr 2016.

Release: China, 29 Apr 2016.