Serendipity Love
我的遗憾和你有关
China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 91 mins.
Directors: Zhen Yongbo 甄永波, Zhen Yongtao 甄永涛.
Rating: 4/10.
Poorly written Gen-90 romance is just about watchable thanks to lead actress He Landou and some name cameos.
STORY
Ningzhou city, somewhere in China, 2022. It is the wedding day of Xiang Yan (He Landou), who is about to get married to someone she is not close to but whom her family has arranged. (In May 2014, while studying art at Ningzhou university, she was charged with borrowing a skeleton from the medical school for a class. While there she had bumped into Lin Hengyu [Cao Yuchen], a close childhood friend she hadn’t seen for years, who was now a brilliant surgical student under professor Tan Hua [Yang Haoyu]. Lin Hengyu had remembered her but was not as smitten by the encounter as Xiang Yan who, going up to him later, had offered to be his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Lin Hengyu had been persuaded by his friend Song Cheng [Jiang Yifan] to put together an ad hoc pop group so Song Cheng could one evening declare in song his feelings for postgraduate research student Tan Shishi [Liang Songqing], Tan Hua’s daughter. With himself on guitar, Lin Hengyu had got his two roommates, Shiran [Wu Hai] and Jiang Qi [Bian Jingkai] – who was romancing Xiang Yan’s BFF and fellow art student Lu Nian [Jin Yangyang] – to play bass guitar and drums. Tan Hua had tried to persuade Lin Hengyu not to spoil his hands – so perfect for surgery – by playing the guitar, but on the actual evening had helped the students out.) Xiang Yan remembers all this as she walks to meet the groom. (In 2015, a year after the night of Song Cheng’s declaration of love for Tan Shishi, Tan Hua had still been urging Lin Hengyu to try for a scholarship, which would be financially useful after graduation. Xiang Yan had finally convinced him, and he had won a scholarship. But a celebration dinner with Xiang Yan’s father [Jia Bing] had gone badly when she had introduced Lin Hengyu as her boyfriend.) At the wedding the groom doesn’t turn up and the event is cancelled. Xiang Yan’s father apologises for pushing her into a marriage she didn’t want. All her university friends are there, except Lin Hengyu. (At the end of the term in 2015, Lin Hengyu had still been worrying about how to tell Xiang Yan that he couldn’t reciprocate her feelings, and after walking around together at night they had parted inconclusively. But back home Lin Hengyu had decided to follow the advice of his mother – who’d abandoned him when young for a love affair and later died – to “follow your heart”. In 2016, after graduation, Lin Hengyu and Xiang Yan had moved in together but kept the news secret from her father. However, he had found out, so both had visited him for dinner to clear the air. Then one day, at the hospital where he was working, Lin Hengyu had collapsed with early symptoms of motor neuron disease (ALS), which had started to affect his right hand and would prevent him becoming a surgeon. His mother had died from the same disease, but he had not told Xiang Yan about his problem, even after they subsequently quarrelled and split up.)
REVIEW
Thanks to a valiant performance by lead actress He Landou 何蓝逗 and characterful guest roles by older names, some very thin material just makes it past the 90-minute finishing line in Serendipity Love 我的遗憾和你有关, a Gen-90 romance that’s the first feature by twin brothers Zhen Yongbo 甄永波 and Zhen Yongtao 甄永涛 whose background is in TV drama. Told almost entirely in flashback, this love-story-that-never-stood-a-chance suffers badly from a wooden, pretty-boy performance by TV actor Cao Yuchen 曹煜辰 as the male lead, plus a scattergun script (by the brothers and new name Zhao Yue 赵越) that becomes more chaotic as it proceeeds. Local box office was a meh RMB33 million.
The film starts in the present on the wedding day of Xiang Yan (He), who tells the audience in voiceover that she’s about to marry someone she’s not in love with but feels she has to marry. The first of many flashbacks starts with one to 2014, when she’s studying art at (fictional) Ningzhou university and suddenly falls for medical student Lin Hengyu (Cao), a childhood friend she hasn’t seen for years. He doesn’t seem to be remotely interested in her, even when she publicly offers to be his girlfriend – a state of affairs that’s underlined throughout the film by Cao’s epicene performance and makes even their temporary hook-up completely unbelievable. Lin Hengyu happens to be a brilliant student who’s supported by his professor, and parallel threads, which are more convincing than the main one, include a romance between one of Lin Hengyu’s roommates and the professor’s daughter.
The screenplay starts losing any structure about half-an-hour in, when there’s a surprise development at the present-day wedding. Thereafter it doesn’t seem able to find any emotional or narrative cohesion, as the central couple finally seem to get together just before the old chestnut of a fatal disease is worked into the plot. The final 10 minutes is a complete mess, with even the fate of one leading character a tad obscure.
What just about keeps the film watchable (and briefly moving at times) is a convinced and commanding performance by 23-year-old He (so good in high-school-and-after drama My Best Summer 最好的我们, 2019) as the lead girl, even though she’s acting in a complete vacuum in her scenes with the blank-faced Cao, 29, making his big-screen debut. Fortunately there are several other good performances for He to bounce off of, including newbie actresses Jin Yangyang 靳阳阳, 26, as her BFF student colleague, and Liang Songqing 梁颂晴, 23, as the professor’s daughter, plus, in the best of the guest roles, character vet Jia Bing 贾冰 (the train conductor in Lost in Russia 囧妈, 2020) as her comically stroppy father who takes an instant dislike to her beau. Scenes with Jia – as well as those with the experienced Bao Bei’er 包贝尔 as a civic affairs official and Pan Binlong 潘斌龙 as the male lead’s uncle – help to keep the movie motoring.
Zhongshan city, in Guangdong province just west of Hong Kong, stands in for the fictional Ningzhou. Technical credits get the job done without any special qualities. The film’s awkward Chinese title literally means “My Regret Is to Do with You”.
CREDITS
Presented by Ningyang Pictures (Guangzhou) (CN), Hangzhou 1905 Pictures (CN), Shanghai Galaxy Stars (CN). Produced by Ningyang Pictures (Foshan) (CN).
Script: Zhen Yongbo, Zhao Yue, Zhen Yongtao. Photography: Ji Weimin. Editing: Wang Guan. Music production: Zhao Meng. Songs: Jiang Yifan (music), Zhou Shudong, Jiang Yifan (lyrics), Jiang Yifan, Cao Yuchen (vocals). Art direction: Yang Weizhuang. Styling: Luo Qi. Sound: Su Zhijian, Yan Xuelei. Animation: Feng Shangcheng, Dong Yuwei, Xu Xin.
Cast: He Landou (Xiang Yan), Cao Yuchen (Lin Hengyu), Liang Songqing (Tan Shishi), Wu Hai (Shiran), Jin Yangyang (Lu Nian), Bian Jingkai (Jiang Qi), Zhao Caiqi (Su Yanyan), Bao Bei’er (Shen Kan, Civic Affairs Office official), Jia Bing (Xiang Yan’s father), Pan Binlong (Deng Tongshan, Lin Hengyu’s maternal uncle), Yang Haoyu (Tan Hua, surgery professor), Jiang Yifan (Song Cheng), Guo Fengzhou (He Weimin), Xu Chao (Yu Yi’ang), Yu He (Deng Yunting), Zhang Ruimin (Gu Li), Liang Zuwei (young Lin Hengyu), Zhu Ziyue (young Xiang Yan), Lei Jing (supervisory female teacher).
Release: China, 4 Nov 2022.