I Belonged to You
从你的全世界路过
China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 113 mins.
Director: Zhang Yibai 张一白.
Rating: 7/10.
A well-cast look at the many shades of love is a real charmer from head to toe.
STORY
Chongqing, central China, 2014. One evening on their phone-in show on City Radio, Xiaorong (Du Juan) breaks up with her co-presenter and longtime boyfriend Chen Mo (Deng Chao), much to his surprise. Two years later, ratings on Chen Mo’s programme, Passing Through Your World 从你的全世界路过, have plummeted as he’s all but given up. However, Xiaorong, now programme director at the radio station, still believes in him. None of the interns wants to work with Chen Mo, apart from one, Birdie (Zhang Tian’ai), and when she intervenes and ticks off a caller one night, the programme’s ratings shoot up. At home, Chen Mo lives a colourful life: his mother (Liao Xueqiu) has early signs of Alzheimer’s, his hopeless inventor cousin Mao Shiba (Yang Yang) is romantically pursued by a neighbourhood policewoman, Lychee (Bai Baihe), and his old college friend Chubby (Yue Yunpeng), who also lives with them, is still hopelessly in love with Yanzi (Liu Yan), a girl he knew at college who spends all her time overseas. When Mao Shiba and Lychee start officially dating, the former moves out of Chen Mo’s home. Yanzi finally returns home, but with bad news for Chubby. Meanwhile, Xiaorong learns she’s been defrauded by a businessman friend, Cao Yu (Cao Weiyu). Everyone takes a trip to scenic Daocheng, a Tibetan autonomous county in western Sichuan province, where Mao Shiba romantically proposes to Lychee. By now, Birdie has also silently fallen for Chen Mo, though he still treats her as just a younger friend. To hide her disappointment, Birdie vows to Chen Mo she’ll bring him and Xiaorong together again before she leaves the radio station.
REVIEW
Following his youth-to-adulthood romantic drama Fleet of Time 匆匆那年 (2014), Mainland film-maker Zhang Yibai 张一白 comes up with another smoothly packaged and well-cast look at the many shades of love in romantic comedy I Belonged to You 从你的全世界路过. Only his seventh solo feature in a career spent equally as a producer, directing segments of portmanteau movies and popping up as an actor, this one lacks the scope of Fleet of Time but is a real charmer from head to toe, adapted from a novel by Zhang Jiajia 张嘉佳 (who lead-scripted The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman 刀见笑, 2010) but shot through with Zhang Yibai’s particular brand of romantic naivety, sprightly ensemble playing and a sharp sense of place. The last has informed all his films but is especially resonant here, set like the earlier Curiosity Kills the Cat 好奇害死猫 (2006) and Lost. Indulgence 秘岸 (2008) in his hometown of Chongqing. A surprise hit given its modest scale, Belonged aced the splashy 3-D fantasy L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 爵迹 released the same week.
The surprise is that popular actor-director Deng Chao 邓超, 37, not known for his underplaying in comedy (The Breakup Guru 分手大师, 2014), doesn’t overwhelm the ensemble. Reining back his tendency to mug, Deng plays Chen Mo, a presenter of a popular nighttime phone-in show: he’s gone to pieces since being ditched on-air by his longtime girlfriend (Du Juan 杜鹃, much more relaxed than in New York New York 纽约纽约, 2016) but gets back on track thanks to an admiring intern nicknamed Birdie (Zhang Tian’ai 张天爱, 25, in an impressive big-screen debut). Deng brings an improvised feel to many of his scenes that fits the character, a man who has little understanding of women’s feelings and gets by on a kind of boyish charm.
Deng and Zhang have an easy chemistry that sustains the film but also fits in with the other stories: Chen Mo’s hopeless inventor cousin (TV actor Yang Yang 杨洋 in big specs) who’s romantically pursued by a policewoman (Bai Baihe 白百合), and his tubby pal (Yue Yunpeng 岳云鹏) who’s hopelessly in love with a scheming beauty (Liu Yan 柳岩). In a supporting role, Bai is terrific as always and almost takes over the film as the gung-ho neighbourhood cop (“So many bad guys! Great! I smell promotion!”), but she’s given a run for her money by cute newcomer Zhang, underplaying throughout.
With a busy handheld style, and trim editing by Hong Kong’s Chen Zhiwei 陈志伟 [Andy Chan], Zhang Yibai keeps all the various balls equally in the air, while following Chen Mo’s gradual journey to self-awareness in his relationship with Birdie. The film doesn’t plumb any great emotional depths but works a charm thanks to the performances and the widescreen visuals of Li Bingqiang 李炳强 (Fleet of Time) that always keep the city in the background with copious rooftop scenes and resonant nightscapes. In its freshness, Belonged sometimes recalls Zhang’s earlier pictures like Spring Subway 开往春天的地铁 (2002), especially in the music, and The Longest Night in Shanghai 夜。上海 (2007), in its portrait of a city.
A paragraphing device showing other large cities in China and their local phone-in shows is less meaningful, especially as the film is not really about the job of broadcasting. The Chinese title is the name of Chen Mo’s show, literally “Passing through Your World”.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Tianjin Xiron Entertainment (CN), Tianjin Orange Image Media (CN), Tianjin Xiron & Xingya Media (CN), Youth Enlight Pictures (CN), Horgos Orange Image Media (CN), Such A Good Film (CN), Nanjing Sea Of Time Culture (CN).
Script: Zhang Jiajia. Novel: Zhang Jiajia. Photography: Li Bingqiang. Editing: Chen Zhiwei [Andy Chan]. Music: An Wei. Art direction: Zheng Chen. Costumes: Cao Weikang. Sound: An Wei. Action: Yun Dae-weon. Visual effects: Gao Yuan.
Cast: Deng Chao (Chen Mo), Zhang Tian’ai (Yaoji/Birdie), Bai Baihe (Lizhi/Lychee), Yang Yang (Mao Shiba), Yue Yunpeng (Zhutou/Chubby), Du Yuan (Xiaorong), Liu Yan (Yanzi), Liao Xueqiu (Chen Mo’s mother), Cao Weiyu (Cao Yu), Wang Qi’nan (keep-fit listener), An Hanjin (broadcaster), Pan Xiao (noodle-eating listener), Cao Difei (radio boss), Zhu Hong (wedding-dress woman), Liu Lesi (Yuan Jiaze), Lan Ke (radio inspector), Liang Chao (Chen), Zhang Aiqin (pork seller), Zhang Mei’e (old woman).
Release: China, 29 Sep 2016.