The End of Endless Love

如果声音不记得

China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 102 mins.

Director: Luo Luo 落落 [Zhao Jiarong 赵佳蓉].

Rating: 4/10.

Youth-romance riff between an extra-terrestrial and a chronic depressive is thinly plotted, anaemic stuff.

STORY

A city somewhere in China, the present day. On 5 Apr 2019 Xin Tang (Sun Chenjun) visits the grave of his mother and father – the last time he’ll be able to, as in 100 days’ time he is “leaving”. A young folk-song student, Ji Ze (Zhang Ruonan), approaches him and films their encounter; she’s trying to become an internet streaming celebrity – without much success – in order to make some money. He blocks her out, apparently using some kind of magical power. In fact, Xin Tang is from another world and intends to return there in 100 days’ time, when the portal will open just once. Going with him will be his best friend and flatmate Yu Chitong (Wang Yanlin), who is all he has left in the world now his own parents are dead. His race, which can make people happy through the sound of their voice, gets its energy from the happiness that results; but if they use their power on someone three times, they remain bound to that person for ever, continuing to live if that person remains happy but dying if that person isn’t happy. It was for that reason that Xin Tang’s father died. Some time later, Xin Tang bumps into Ji Ze at a karaoke club where Yu Chitong works; he saves her from being harassed by some drunken friends of a roommate in her student dormitory. Xin Tang gets no thanks from her for his gallantry, and she walks away; later that night, seeing her about to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge, he rescues her again – and then passes out. Yu Chitong finds him in hospital and says he is now “bound” to Ji Ze, as, somehow, this was the third occasion on which he’d used his powers on her. To stop himself dying from Ji Ze’s unhappiness – and therefore be unable to return to his own world through the portal – he must make her happy for the next 98 days. He lends his handsome presence to her videos in order to boost their popularity with young women; but she proves a harder nut to crack when it comes to any romance between them. Gradually Xin Tang realises she is only pretending to be happy in order to please him, and that she is hiding some dark secret.

REVIEW

The professional partnership between 38-year-old Shanghai writer-director Luo Luo 落落 (aka Zhao Jiarong 赵佳蓉) and writer-filmmaker-stylista Guo Jingming 郭敬明 (Tiny Times 小时代 quartet, 2013-15) continues with The End of Endless Love 如果声音不记得, an over-long fantasy about romantic love that’s as pointless as its English title. (The Chinese one is the only marginally more sensible “If the Voice Doesn’t Remember”.) After filming an early novel by Guo for her second outing as a director (Cry Me a Sad River 悲伤逆流成河, 2018), Luo Luo – again with Guo as creative producer 监制 – turns to one of her own early works for her third feature: a novella of the same title published in a the 2005 collection Something Warm & Wonderful in Life 那些生命中温暖而美好的事情 (see cover, left). However, Guo’s fingerprints are all over this film version, from the metrosexual boy to the cute girl, as well as the pervasive sexless atmosphere despite all the talk of love and romance.

It will always remain an irony of the Mainland’s unpredictable box office that Luo Luo’s first (and best) film to date, office rom-com The Last Women Standing 剩者为王 (2015) starring Taiwan actress Shu Qi 舒淇, made less than a fifth (RMB61 million) of what her two films with Guo have. Targeted straight at Guo’s young female fanbase, Endless Love has racked up a nice RMB333 million in three weeks, only slightly down on Cry’s RMB355 million. [Final tally was RMB335 million.] It’s also conveniently warmed the audience up for Guo’s first theatrical release as a director in four years, the costume martial-arts fantasy Dream of Eternity 晴雅集 (2020), released on 25 Dec.

Like Cry, which centred on teenage VD and school bullying, Endless Love also claims social credentials as a timely look at depression in young people. But that’s just window-dressing for a pretty standard meet-cute melodrama about two young people who both have secrets to hide: she suffers from depression because of something in her family background and he needs to keep her happy for 100 days in order to guarantee his own survival. The first 20 minutes suffers from clumsy exposition as the ground is laid for the curious romance: he’s actually an extra-terrestrial who’s going back to his own world via a portal that will open only once, while she believes that he really wants to make her happy. The film could be read as some kind of elaborate metaphor for the lies told in the name of love, but it’s essentially a college-set youth romance with a silly fantasy twist.

The girl certainly seems to represent today’s millennial youth: happy on the outside but rather sad and lonely on the inside. And the boy, typically for a Guo production, just seems to be going through the motions when it comes to romance. The only driver is whether the two will actually develop any genuine feelings for each other, and therefore whether the boy will decide to stay on Earth and take his chances with her curing her depression. There is some development in this direction but it’s all very anaemic and sexless: Luo Luo prefers to give free rein to her d.p., Taiwan’s Che Liangyi 车亮逸 [Randy Che] (Tiny Times), to create one dreamy landscape after another, rather than cut to the chase in the central relationship. The yearning, ethereal score follows Che’s visual lead, making the film little more than a string of sumptuously shot musicvideos.

With its tiny cast of characters and thin plot development, Endless Love becomes a test of patience during the final half-hour, barely making it across the 100-minute finishing line. Top-billed Zhang Ruonan 张若楠, 24, who played the elder twin sister in Cry and has since been working in TV dramas, has a bright, open-faced presence but is mostly called upon to be glum and tragic; as her potential beau, newcomer Sun Chenjun 孙晨竣, 24, who’s also in Guo’s Dream of Eternity, is just pretty and expressionless most of the time. As often in youth romances, their best friends are more characterful and played by more experienced actors, though here they get limited screen time: Wang Yanlin 王彦霖 (more often found in action roles) as the boy’s flatmate and Guo Shutong 郭姝彤 (Yesterday Once More 谁的青春不迷茫, 2016; Blood of Youth 少年, 2016) as the girl’s roommate.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Shanghai ZUI (CN), Horgos Colorful Enlight Pictures (CN), Shannan Enlight Pictures (CN).

Script: Guo Jingming. Novella: Luo Luo [Zhao Jiarong]. Photography: Che Liangyi [Randy Che]. Art direction: Ding Wensi. Styling: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Xu Zhengyi.

Cast: Zhang Ruonan (Ji Ze), Sun Chenjun (Xin Tang/Xin Tangsheng), Wang Yanlin (Yu Chitong), Guo Shutong (Sang Yaoyao), Zuo Xiaoqing (Ji Ze’s mother), Wu Shuang (Wang Shan), Wang Jiahui (Feng Meilan), Sun Letian (Ji Ze’s father), Xu Jingying (young Ji Ze), Yan Yikuan, Zhang Yao.

Release: China, 4 Dec 2020.