Fall in Love

爱神

China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 104 mins.

Director: Hua Ming 花明.

Rating: 7/10.

Cleverly constructed and well-played rom-com is a notable debut by Mainland writer-director Hua Ming.

STORY

Shanghai, 2012. Su Xiaobei (Wang Ziwen), who works in New World Department Store’s display department, and Si Song (Zhong Hanliang), a dentist, are both in their favourite flower shop on the same day without seeing each other. (Fifteen days earlier, Su Xiaobei had been introduced to a new work colleague, head of engineering Wu Tianlang [Ren Zhong]. They had previously met outside a hotel where an old man had collapsed and needed help; he was head of hotel security, she was attending the wedding reception of Li Liran [Purba Rgyal] and Pang Jinlian [Guan Ling]. Su Xiaobei and Wu Tianlang had taken a shine to each other then, so her flatmate and work colleague Qianqian [Wu Xin] warned her not to make a similar blunder as she did with Li Liran’s feelings. However, after discovering they both went to the same dentist – Si Song – they had started dating, during which he’d told her about a love he’d lost three years earlier. But then, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, he had pretended to go to Hong Kong but actually stayed in Shanghai, where Su Xiaobei had accidentally spotted him in the flower shop, whose owner [He Dujuan] turned out to be his lost love.) (Fifty days earlier, Su Song had been coming to feel that his live-in girlfriend, Lili [Zhang Li], a high-powered executive, was always putting her work before their relationship. Meanwhile, his dental assistant, Pang Jinlian, had resigned to get married to her fiance, footballer Li Liran. As Si Song had arrived at the wedding reception with Lili, he went to the aid of an old man who’d collapsed outside the hotel and has been initially aided by Su Xiaobei. Lili had been suddenly called away on urgent business and, even though he’d only seen Su Xiaobei briefly, Si Song had left his jacket with Wu Tianlang for Su Xiaobei to keep warm. Lili had later told Si Song she’d been falsely accused of criminal doings and suspended from work pending an investigation. Si Song had offered to marry her.) That day in the flower shop, Si Song orders flowers for Lili and that night at dinner proposes to her in the same restaurant where Su Xiaobei is dining with Wu Tianlang and other work colleagues. However, halfway through his proposal, Lili hears from her boss Zhang (Hong Tianming) that she’s been reinstated and she rushes off to meet him. Later Lili says Zhang has promoted her and wants her to move to France for a year; she has decided to accept the offer. The Mid-Autumn Festival arrives and Su Xiaobei, now unattached like Si Song, arrives at his surgery for some planned treatment. Soon afterwards they discover they share a common interest.

REVIEW

Henan-born writer-director Hua Ming 花明 makes a notable feature debut with Fall in Love 爱神, a Shanghai-set rom-com with an interlocking cast of characters and well-structured script that doesn’t dawdle. The overlapping storylines (a popular device of the time) aren’t employed just to show the writer’s cleverness and, despite all the sitting around drinking wine in smart urban surroundings, the film isn’t another encomium to the city’s yuppie class thanks to the generally simpatico performances and agreeably light tone. Despite the presence of Hong Kong actor-singer Zhong Hanliang 钟汉良 [Wallace Chung], still better known for his TV roles, it got lost in the rom-com shuffle, taking only a tiny RMB12 million.

A graduate of Beijing Film Academy and Beijing Normal University’s fine arts faculty, Hua had only one substantial writing credit to her name, the contemporary urban TV drama series Two Girls 两个女孩的那些事 (2010), prior to embarking on Love. Basically centred on two characters – a dentist and a window-dresser – whose storylines keep crossing and almost crossing until finding romance in the final half-hour, Hua’s script manages to be clever without tying itself up in knots for their own sake, as well as providing good opportunities for his cast to shine. Despite packing a lot in, it keeps moving forward; and despite a rather uninvolving central section – the clearly doomed relationship between the dentist and his career-obsessed girlfriend – the third act recovers the more natural and less schematic tone of the opening, centred on the unlucky-in-love window-dresser and her tendency to only see the best in people.

Around this time Zhong, then 38, had been working hard at establishing a career in the Mainland – especially in movies – so it’s a pity Love made little impression commercially. (His roles in the higher-profile The Continent 后会无期 and rom-com Meet Miss Anxiety 我的早更女友, both 2014, were still to come.) A likeable presence but sometimes too soft for the big screen, he makes a good fist of the Mandarin dialogue and has simpatico chemistry with rising Mainland co-star Wang Ziwen 王子文, then 26, who’d given a good account of herself in the ambitious but patchy Cool Young 正•青春 (2010) and Lee’s Adventure 李献计历险记 (2011). When the two finally get together in the final furlong – brought together by a cute dog (aah!) – their combined charm contributes to a touching finale, with the petite Wang transcending pure cuteness.

Other players are solid, from TV actor-singer Ren Zhong 任重 as a potential suitor to Wang’s character, through actress-presenter Wu Xin 吴昕 as her airhead BFF to TV’s Zhang Li 张俪 as the dentist’s careerist girlfriend. Photography by fine Hong Kong d.p. Wu Wenzheng 吴文拯 (better known for action or horror movies) is good-looking without being glossy for its own sake, while English songs on the soundtrack keep things fashionably moving. The film’s Chinese title means “Eros” or “The Love God”.

CREDITS

Presented by Times Sanhe Culture (Beijing) Investment (CN), Shanghai Cayie Movie & Video Communication (CN).

Script: Hua Ming. Photography: Wu Wenzheng. Editing: Cai Yulin. Music: Jin Peida [Peter Kam], Wang Jianwei. Music design: Jin Peida [Peter Kam]. Art direction: Huang Jinfu. Styling: Yang Weibo. Sound: Xu Ying. Executive direction: Liu Hai.

Cast: Zhong Hanliang [Wallace Chung] (Si Song), Wang Ziwen (Su Xiaobei/Bella), Zhang Li (Lili), Ren Zhong (Wu Tianlang/Jacky), Wu Xin (Qianqian, Su Xiaobei’s flatmate), He Dujuan (florist), Hong Tianming (Zhang, CEO), Guan Ling (Pang Jinlian/Emily, dental asssistant), Zhang Qian (Su Xiaobei’s supervisor), Purba Rgyal (Li Liran), Xiao Jian (Ge Degang, security officer), Ying Jilei (pet-shop employee), Wei Wei’er (dental assistant), Han Dong (Ma, Lili’s perfidious work colleague), Jiang Songming.

Release: China, 8 Mar 2013.