The Last Wish

小小的愿望

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 106 mins.

Director: Tian Yusheng 田羽生.

Rating: 4/10.

Modest black comedy on death, sex and farewell is too thin and unengaging to make a feature.

STORY

A city in China, summer 2002. Xu Hao (Wang Dalu), his childhood friend Gao Yuan (Peng Yuchang) and the not-too-bright Zhang Zhengyang (Wei Daxun) were a well-known trio at high school, led by Xu Hao. But for the past two years Gao Yuan has been in hospital, paralysed with a form of muscular dystrophy, and now, having graduated from senior high school, Xu Hao and Zhang Zhengyang regularly visit him. Gao Yuan’s parents (Yue Yang, Li Ge) are told by the doctor, who is Zhang Zhengyang’s father (Jia Bing), that their son has not long to live. Neither parent can break the news to him and instead try various ways of cheering him up – which involve the father training for a marathon run. Xu Hao and Zhang Zhengyang suspect something is up. So, when the efforts of Gao Yuan’s father go dramatically wrong, the mother finally tells the two boys. They decide to take him to the seaside, as he’d always wanted, but end up almost drowning him. While there they also visit the salon of a beautiful hairdresser (Zeng Mengxue). Back in hospital, Gao Yuan tells his friends that he’s guessed he’s going to die. He says that his biggest wish is not to die a virgin. Xu Hao and Zhang Zhengyang approach various female ex-classmates to see if they can help Gao Yuan out but get slapped down. Finally, they remember a fat girl, nicknamed Sima Gang (Wang Yuwen), who liked Gao Yuan at junior high school, and track her down. She’s now slim and pretty, but, before rejecting their proposal, says it was Xu Hao she always liked, not Gao Yuan. Finally admitting defeat, they tell Gao Yuan’s father about his son’s last wish and visit the hairdresser at the seaside to see if she’s interested. They make enough money to pay her and then nervously await her arrival at the hospital on the prearranged night, when the father has said the mother will not be visiting.

REVIEW

Following the huge box-office success of The Ex-File: The Return of the Exes 前任3  再见前任 (2017) – the smoothest and most confident of his trio of yuppie relationship comedies – Chengdu-born film-maker Tian Yusheng 田羽生 crashes back to earth with The Last Wish 小小的愿望, a modest but very thin black comedy about two teenagers who try to get their best friend laid before he dies. Closely based on a South Korean original, The Last Ride 위대한 소원 (2016, see poster left) – with whole sections recycled almost shot for shot – it’s a modest, very simple movie that tiptoes round the sexual theme more than the original and ends up being so low-key it could just as well have been a half-hour short. Pleasantly played and shot, but nowhere near as engaging or funny as it should be, Wish looks like doing only so-so business, along the lines of Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back 前任2  备胎反击战 (2015, RMB252 million), mostly on the strength of Tian’s name.

Despite its good qualities, Return of the Exes was hardly over-burdened with plot; its best moments were when Tian just let the four leads get on with their thing and exploit their excellent one-screen chemistry with each other. Written by basically the same team, including the pseudonymous Da Kuan 大宽 (aka Hu Jiahao 胡嘉豪) and Da Guang 大广 (aka Ma Jingqi 马镜淇), Wish tries to do the same but the younger key cast can’t give the sly comedy the necessary heft to sustain a whole feature film. As the leader of the three pals (all aged around 19), Taiwan’s Wang Dalu 王大陆, 28, is more fitted – with his rubbery features and cheeky-chappie personality – to more extrovert comedy (Our Times 我的少女时代, 2015; Legend of the Naga Pearls 鲛珠传, 2017), while Mainlanders Peng Yuchang 彭昱畅, 24, as the dying one, and Wei Daxun 魏大勋, 30, as the joker of the pack, aren’t given much personality at all. Peng, especially, is capable of more (Our Shining Days 闪光少女, 2017; Go Brother 快把我哥带走, 2018) but mostly just lies there looking feeble.

The elders fare a little better, especially the experienced Li Ge 李歌 as the dying boy’s mother and Feng Jiayi 冯嘉怡 as a flamboyant teacher, but, like Tian’s own cameo as a traffic cop, they’re passing pleasures, not enough to sustain the movie. In her two substantial sequences as the “hairdresser” who comes to the rescue, Zeng Mengxue 曾梦雪, 24, so good as the spunky coffee-shop owner in Return of the Exes, is among the best things in the whole picture, blending sexiness with pathos.

Production values are solid and realistic (apart from Zeng’s introductory scene, underlining her character’s real occupation), with noted Taiwan Canadian Che Liangyi 车亮逸 [Randy Che] replacing Tian’s regular d.p. Huang Lian 黄炼 with minimal effect. Ditto the change of editor to the experienced Kong Jinlei 孔劲蕾, who mostly works on artier fare. The film’s original Chinese title was 伟大的愿望 (“A Great Wish”), which simply translated the original’s Korean title. When release was shifted from summer to autumn, the Chinese title ended up being changed to the present one, which means “A Tiny Wish”.

CREDITS

Presented by Fujian Hengye Pictures (CN), China Film (CN), Wanda Media (CN), Huayi Brothers Pictures (CN), New Saint Film (Tianjin) (CN), Perfect Sky Pictures (CN), Alibaba Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Beijing Wishart Media (CN). Produced by New Saint Culture Communication (CN).

Script: The New Saint Screenplay Studio, Da Kuan [Hu Jiahao], Da Guang [Ma Jingqi]. Photography: Che Liangyi [Randy Che]. Editing: Kong Jinlei. Music: A Kun. Art direction: Zheng Chen. Styling: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Hu Liang, Liu Jia. Visual effects: Wu Shijie.

Cast: Wang Dalu (Xu Hao), Peng Yuchang (Gao Yuan), Wei Daxun (Zhang Zhengyang), Zeng Mengxue (hairdresser), Jia Bing (Zhang Zhengming’s father, doctor), Yue Yang (Gao Yuan’s father), Li Ge (Gao Yuan’s mother), Feng Jiayi (Xia Yu, teacher), Wang Yuwen (Sima Gang), Mengke Bate’er (himself, basketball star), Tian Yusheng (traffic policeman).

Release: China, 12 Sep 2019.