A Young Girl’s Destiny

逆袭

China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 94 mins.

Director: An Zhanjun 安战军.

Rating: 6/10.

Drama centred on a young wannabe in Beijing’s TV world is solid enough.

STORY

Beijing, winter. After studying in the UK, where her parents are living, Zuo Yingning (Zhang Lixin) has returned to China to realise her dream of becoming a TV presenter. Initially she becomes a floating worker in the city, and one day gets into an argument with an aggressive young guy, Yang Dachuan (Han Pengyi), who knocks down her scooter. Taking part in a job-hunting TV show, she’s offered the post of a researcher/reporter by one of the judges, and bumps again into Yang Dachuan, who is a cameraman. The two end up together on an assignment for the programme Everyday Entertainment, covering the bitter custody battle of star Hao Chen (Wang Kai) with his ex-wife, and by chance get a scoop of Hao Chen involved in a fight outside a nightclub. Later, they cover Hao Chen’s public apology, in which he admits he is not a “foreign returnee” but actually from a village in Henan, and emotionally thanks his mother. In fact, the whole incident was staged by Hao Chen’s manager, George (Liu Xiaoye), as part of a campaign to rehabilitate the star in the public’s eyes. Zuo Yingning is offered a job as a TV host by Hao Chen’s management company, and she and Hao Chen become successful hosting a talent show together. Meanwhile, Yang Dachuan thinks Zuo Yingning has sold out her principles; he’s also becoming jealous of Hao Chen’s attentions towards her.

REVIEW

Billing itself as “Mainland cinema’s first comprehensive expose of the inner workings of the entertainment industry”, A Young Girl’s Destiny 逆袭 is hardly that. But it’s a solid enough drama about ambition and cynicism in showbiz from the point-of-view of Zuo Yingning, a young wannabe who’s returned from her studies abroad, and Yang Dachuan, a basic, working-stiff Beijinger she meets on the way up. The script is not as smooth as in the engaging ensemble movies (Hutong Days 胡同里的阳光, 2008; Glittering Days 万家灯火, 2009) that director An Zhanjun 安战军 makes between military dramas for August First Film Studio; but the script, co-adapted by Ning Dai 宁岱, a former collaborator with director Zhang Yuan 张元, has a feel for Beijing’s media world without too much exaggeration and also for what one can potentially lose on the way up when speed and ambition take over.

In that respect it’s a much more grounded film than many of its type, partly because its main character is not a singer or actress but simply a TV host, and partly because it doesn’t become yet another fame-sex-and-drugs yarn along the lines of, say, the recent Hong Kong saga Diva 华丽之后 (2012). Being a Mainland movie, it comes with a moral core attached – here in the role of Yang Dachuan, a no-nonsense cameraman whom the main character befriends en route. Played by young stage and musical actor Han Pengyi 韩鹏翼 (the butcher’s best friend in The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman 刀见笑, 2010) with an authentic blue-collar northern attitude, cameraman Yang Dachuan becomes the touchstone for Zuo Yingning’s private doubts, turning a rote role into one that at least has its own personality.

In her first leading film role, Zhang Lixin 张立昕, 24, who also started out as a TV presenter, gives the part of Zuo Yingning a mixture of spit and ingenuousness, and carries herself okay. TV actor Wang Kai 王凯 doesn’t bring much depth to the role of the calculating star and is outshone at every turn by cross-talk comedian Liu Xiaoye 刘晓晔 (the butcher in The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman) as the star’s flamboyantly queeny manager. (At the hour mark, Liu even gets a show-stopping speech about his character’s career sacrifices.)

Technical credits are clean and unfussy, the only standout being the gliding Beijing cityscapes (by An’s regular d.p., Cai Shu’nan 蔡抒南) that paragraph the film and give it a sense of location. The original title means “Counter-attack” or “Fighting Back”, in the sense of defending one’s ground or principles. The film is also known under its pinyin title Ni xi.

CREDITS

Presented by China Movie Channel (CN), Hao An (Beijing) Film & TV Culture Media (CN), Hua Xia Film Distribution (CN). Produced by Hao An (Beijing) Film & TV Culture Media (CN).

Script: Xu Yimeng. Adaptation: Zhao Lei, Ning Dai. Photography: Cai Shu’nan. Editing: Cheng Jie. Music: Yin Hao, Li Yulin. Art direction: Zhang Meng. Costumes: Liu Jiayu. Sound: Wang Lewen, Mao Jinling. Executive direction: Qian Rui.

Cast: Zhang Lixin (Zuo Yingning), Han Pengyi (Yang Dachuan), Wang Kai (Hao Chen), Liu Xiaoye (George, Hao Chen’s manager), Zhang Fan (Chen, agency head), Zhao Bin (Zhang), Hao Rongguang (Xu, editor), Song Chuyan (director), Zang Hongna (fat examiner), Wu Zhihong (mother), Liu Xudong (brawny man), Zhang Dapeng (director), Chao Fan (production manger), Kang Junlong (Wang), Yang Xing (manager), Li Jing (Xiaoye), Shen Jian (worker).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Focus China), 17 Jun 2013.

Release: China, 6 Sep 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 7 Jul 2013.)