Tempting Hearts

有一点动心

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 93 mins.

Directors: Chen Jiashang 陈嘉上 [Gordon Chan], Zhu Xuefei 朱雪菲.

Rating: 6/10.

Offbeat, soso-scripted rom-com depends a lot on its two leads, Mainland comedienne Ren Suxi and Taiwan actor-singer Yan Chengxu.

STORY

Chengdu city, Sichuan province, southwest China, the present day. After discovering that there are 30 million more men than women in China, and that nearly 40 million women choose not to get married when young, Chen Ran (Ren Suxi) has launched a dating app called Good Match Tech 良人科技. She even sells the idea to some parents in a marriage park one weekend, when her own parents (Li Hucheng, Li Qinqin) are visiting her and still trying to marry her off. Her small company, which she manages with her friend Xue Fenfang (Xia Moqiao) and has around half-a-dozen staff, uses big data to match people. Its monthly marketing event is gatecrashed by a group of six men, led by Zhou Qiwen (Yan Chengxu), whose live-cam site Military Strategy 军师攻略 failed partly because Xue Fenfang had exposed them on Weibo. Zhou Qiwen recently returned from his home city Taibei after the failure of a relationship, and none of his four bachelor friends currently has a girlfriend. Zhou Qiwen signs up for five VIP Good Match memberships at the promotional price of RMB50,000 each. Chen Ran’s team finds it hard to get matches for any of them, except Zhou Qiwen. When she realises who the men are and that they’re bent on revenge, Chen Ran decides to find a match for Zhou Qiwen but not for the other four. Her plan fails when Zhou Qiwen runs away from the blind dates she sets up; he finally admits that he just wants to see his friends set up with girlfriends before he leaves soon for Hong Kong. He asks for her help, and the two start spending a lot of time together. But then a handsome surgeon friend of his, Yuan Kangjun (Lian Kai), arrives in Chengdu, as well as Nikki (Tang Jiawen), a female friend of his from Hong Kong.

REVIEW

The 21st century has not been very kind to Hong Hong film-maker Chen Jiashang 陈嘉上 [Gordon Chan]. Just when it seemed, with the powerful costume movie God of War 荡寇风云 (2017), that he’d finally broken away from making the lame (Mural 画壁, 2011) or just routine (The Four 四大名捕 trilogy, 2012-14), Chen pretty much disappeared off the map for several years, partly due no doubt to God’s weedy Mainland box office. With contemporary rom-com Tempting Hearts 有一点动心 he’s belatedly back with a genre he helped to develop in Hong Kong in the late 1980s (The Yuppie Fantasia 小男人周记, 1989), though this time set in China (Chengdu city, Sichuan province) with a Greater China cast led by one of the Mainland’s leading comediennes, Ren Suxi 任素汐, and Taiwan actor/singer Yan Chengxu 言承旭 (Ripples of Desire 花漾, 2012), better known for his TVDs. Alas, as Miss Mom 寻汉计 (2021) recently proved, Ren’s name is still no guarantee at the box office, and Hearts, which depends a lot on her and Yan’s performances, flopped with a measily RMB14.5 million.

Like The Four films, Hearts comes with a co-director attached – in this case, Sichuan-born co-writer Zhu Xuefei 朱雪菲, who gets a separate credit along with Hong Kong action director Li Dachao 李达超 just before Chen’s solo credit. Zhu shares her script credit with Chen and two little-known Mainland writers, Wu Xiaojie 无效洁 (The Pursuit of Happiness 五好楼48小时, 2012) and Lin Jingxuan 林静璇. Whoever did what, the result is an offbeat rom-com centred on a group of men who once ran a live-cam site getting revenge on a group of women who run a dating app. Despite the two groups squaring off against each other early on, the script doesn’t go in the direction of pairing each of them off; instead, it focuses on the two leaders (Ren, Yan) gradually falling for each other as they spend time together trying to find girls for the live-cam bachelors.

It’s not a particularly smooth screenplay, and has a bumpy 20-minute opening as the basic premise is set up. Gradually, Ren and Yan start to make an impression both singly (as he meets some blind dates set up by her) and together (as they spend time together for business reasons). The film only really clicks into gear around the 40-minute mark, as the odd-couple rom-com, featuring two very independent people, gets going. After a couple of surprises in the third act, it all ends, in true genre style, with an airport finale – but one that’s curiously touching thanks to Ren’s performance and the chemistry generated between her and Yan.

Chen has never been a flashy director, and Chengdu as a city is hardly noticeable. Instead, the gently gliding camera of Hong Kong’s Wu Jingwen 吴景文 (Mission Milano 王牌逗王牌, 2016) and smooth music supervised by Wang Zihe 王梓赫 (comedy-romance Once Again 二次初恋, 2017) both encourage a complicity between the performers that isn’t naturally there in the script. In a role that doesn’t try to sell him younger, Yan, 44, is especially good at underplaying his good looks, while the lantern-faced Ren, 33, is equally good at silent, knowing glances. The supporting cast is all solid and discreetly colourful, and the whole thing appears to have been heavily influenced by Taiwan singer-actor Zhang Xinzhe 张信哲, who’s credited as artistic supervisor 艺术总监. The film’s sardonic Chinese title roughly means “Slightly Attracted”.

CREDITS

Presented by Chengdu Longrui Film (CN), Beijing Longyue Dongfang Film & TV Culture Media (CN), Beijing Birch Tale Film Production (CN), Beijing Guoying Zongheng Film (CN), Horgos Longyue Dongfang Film & TV Culture Media (CN), Tide Music Beijing (CN), Beijing Cheering Times Culture & Entertainment (CN). Produced by Beijing Birch Tale Film Production (CN).

Script: Chen Jiashang [Gordon Chan], Wu Xiaojie, Lin Jingxuan, Zhu Xuefei. Photography: Wu Jingwen. Editing: Xu Aijing. Music supervision: Wang Zihe. Art direction: Hu Haoran. Costumes: Li Jingyi, Zhang Chengling. Styling: Wang Jian’an. Sound: Liu Yanjie, Xu Chen. Action: Li Dachao. Martial arts: Lin Xiangjian. Visual effects: Ju Yulong (Converge Pictures). Artistic supervision: Zhang Xinzhe.

Cast: Ren Suxi (Chen Ran), Yan Chengxu (Zhou Qiwen/Jason), Cao Yang (Zheng Zijian), Xia Moqiao (Xue Fenfang/Amber), Qi Wei (Meiqi, Zhou Qiwen’s first blind date), Liu Yan (Kammy), Lian Kai (Yuan Kangjun, surgeon), Tang Jiawen (Nikki), Na Wei (rich man), Li Qinqin (Chen Ran’s mother), Zhang Chen (Lang Taosha), Xu Feng (Jin Chengwu), Zhang Ninghao (Xiao’an), Wang Zi’ao (Yangyu), Li Xingyu (Jing Kong), Zhu Weiling (Zhang Chi), Miao Yu (Yang Yiyi), Long Ni (Long), Lan Manyu (Yu Xiaosi), Wang Yining (Shan Xiaoning), Li Hucheng (Chen Ran’s father), Wang Yiyi (Lang Taosha’s girlfriend), Kang Ning (Yuchen, Zhou Qiwen’s second blind date), Liu Enjia (Zheng Zijian’s girlfriend), Xia Dandan (rich man’s wife).

Release: China, 3 Jun 2021.