Nobody But You

不能错过的只有你

China, 2023, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 111 mins.

Director: Chen Chen 陈晨.

Rating: 5/10.

Odd-couple rom-com, with two strong leads, has a good first hour before jumping the tracks thereafter.

STORY

Chengdu city, Sichuan province, southwest China, late 2019. After performing at an arena concert, feisty solo singer Lin Wen (Li Mengmeng) discovers her boyfriend Hong Zijie (Huang Haonan) in bed with her BFF Little Bat (Liu Yuyu). She smashes a flower vase over his head and is sentenced to one year in prison for assault. A year later, in Beijing, Qin Huasheng (Yang Shuo), an unsuccessful musician from Chengdu, proposes to his girfriend, pianist Wang Weijia (Ai Ru), but is turned down when he says he wants to live back home. Despondent, Qin Huasheng flies back to Chengdu, where his whole extended family – led by his father (Liu Yunyuan) who owns a successful hotpot restaurant and his father’s sister (Xiong Ruiling) – nags him yet again about not having a girlfriend. Meanwhile, Lin Wen has been released from prison and briefly bumps into him on the metro. They bump into each other by chance again at night, when Qin Huasheng attempts to save her from three bullies, though Lin Wen is more than capable of taking care of herself. Over coffee he proposes a strict business deal in which he’ll pay her RMB6,000 to pretend to be his girlfriend for three days. She needs the money, so agrees, with the proviso they have separate bedrooms. He takes her straight home and introduces her as Wang Weijia, who’s in town from Beijing on a short business trip. Qin Huasheng’s younger sister, Qin Qin (Li Ruonan), briefly thinks she’s a “rental girlfriend” but the family quickly accepts her and her invented story, and Qin Huasheng’s no. 2 aunt, delighted at the news, insists on them sharing the same bedroom. Next morning, due to a misunderstanding, the whole family gets the idea that Lin Wen is pregnant – and she’s too slow to deny it. No. 2 aunt takes Liu Wen shopping, and in a mall they bump into Little Bat. Lin Wen manages to quietly warn her off but Little Bat spills the news to Hong Zijie. No. 2 aunt explains to Lin Wen how important it is to the family for Qin Huasheng to marry and produce an heir. Feeling trapped, Lin Wen tries to escape that night but fails; to get her to stay, Qin Huasheng agrees to give her a further RMB3,000. Next day, no. 2 aunt takes Lin Wen shopping for a cot; that night, Qin Huasheng and Lin Wen argue and fight, but more lovingly than usual. The next day, however, the real Wang Weijia suddenly appears in Chengdu, and Qin Huasheng manages to persuade Lin Wen to pretend to be his younger sister Qin Qin as they take Wang Weijia sightseeing. In fact, Wang Weijia already has a new boyfriend and has come for a showdown with Qin Huasheng. He and Lin Wen end up getting drunk together, with Lin Wen, who’s always derided Qin Huasheng for his sappiness, tearfully confessing how she has no family to support her. Back home they end up in bed. The family then decides to enter Qin Huasheng in the Chengdu Mr. Hot Pot Competition, a mixture of talent show and chili-tasting that requires serious training. And Hong Zijie is still looking for revenge on Lin Wen’s humiliation of him.

REVIEW

An odd-couple rom-com between a scruffy wannabe composer and an independent-minded former rock diva, Nobody But You 不能错过的只有你 goes great guns for the first hour before jumping the tracks thereafter. That’s a pity, as the two leads, Yang Shuo 杨烁 and Li Mengmeng 李萌萌, have good screen chemistry together and the screenplay, by director Chen Chen 陈晨 and four others, seems to know exactly where it’s going during the first half. After directing several TVDs, it’s Chen’s second big-screen feature following the box-office flop Screaming Live 尖叫直播 (2018), a comedy-adventure set in the live-streaming world. Nobody wasn’t a flop but it wasn’t a hit either, managing a face-saving RMB54 million on Mainland release this spring, okay for such middle-profile fare.

Mostly a TV actor, Yang, 40, is good here as Qin Huasheng (literally, “Peanut Qin”), who’s been trying to make it as a musician-composer in Beijing and also (to keep his nagging family quiet) get engaged as well. When his pianist girlfriend ditches him, as she doesn’t want to live down south in Chengdu, he flies home, gets nagged again, and hires a feisty woman he bumps into in the street to be his “girlfriend” for three days. Li, 29, who’s worked more in film than TV, and en route cultivated an action-babe persona (especially in online movies), is very good as Lin Wen, a onetime rock star who needs some cash as she’s just out of prison after serving a year for braining her two-timing boyfriend. (A brief scene in which she demolishes some street thugs is a nice in-joke.) Qin Huasheng, who just wants to keep his family quiet for a couple of days, readily agrees to Lin Wen’s “no sex” clause – though as soon as they’re ensconced in the family mansion they find themselves thrown together in more ways than one.

It’s a nice idea that’s jogged along by plot devices like one of Qin Huasheng’s aunts befriending Lin Wen (whom she’s convinced is pregnant), the girlfriend of Lin Wen’s ex popping up unexpectedly, Qin Huasheng’s ex suddenly jetting in from Beijing, and Lin Wen’s ex looking for revenge for the flower vase she smashed over his head. At the hour mark, however, the writers (among whom is Liao Zuoyou 廖左右, Innocent Prisoners 无辜囚徒, 2020, also set in Chengdu) seem to run out of ideas, veering off into a subplot in which Qin Huasheng’s family decides to enter him in the Chengdu Mr. Hot Pot Competition, a talent show-cum-chili tasting event. It all ends on the theme of “family” (which Lin Wen never had) and a unashamed plug for Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. A potentially 7/10 movie unfortunately ends up as a 5/10.

However, it’s still an okay ride, thanks to the cast, and especially Li as the tough loner who can take care of herself and Yang as the musicianly bum from a wealthy family in need of an heir. The relationship make sense on a film level, as it’s made clear (from a humorous early scene in the Chengdu metro) that Lin Wen, who’s currently on her uppers, doesn’t find Qin Huasheng unattractive, while he seems to simply want a business relationship. This is all fertile ground for a classic odd-couple rom-com, though – to be picky – the two actors, both from northeast China, aren’t exactly convincing as Sichuan-ers.

Among the supports, TV actress Xiong Ruiling 熊睿玲, 51, stands out as Qin Huasheng’s busybody aunt who “adopts” Lin Wen, while standup comic Liu Liu 刘流, 60, is good as her husband. With some of the second-half padding and songs eliminated, the film would be much sharper at around 95 minutes. Filming was in Chengdu during summer 2021. The production title was Chengdu Holiday 成都假日.

CREDITS

Presented by Chengdu Chenda Xinxin Culture Communication (CN). Produced by Chengdu Chenda Xinxin Culture Communication (CN).

Script: Chen Chen, Han Haichen, Wu Junfeng, Liang Danruo, Liao Zuoyou. Photography: Tang Zhongcai. Editing: Zhou Ying. Music: Liu Yun. Music supervision: Huang Lele. Art direction: Tan Xiaolin. Styling: Chen Minzheng. Sound: Liu Weiqiang. Visual effects: Xiang Dong, Zhao Xuetai, Zhang Liwei. Executive direction: Peng Long.

Cast: Yang Shuo (Qin Huasheng), Li Mengmeng (Lin Wen), Liu Liu (husband of no. 2 paternal aunt), Ai Ru (Wang Weijia), Xiong Ruiling (no. 2 paternal aunt), Zhong Xiaodan (maternal aunt), Li Ruonan (Qin Qin, Qin Huasheng’s younger sister), Peng Bo (greasy guy), Min Tianhao (western restaurateur), Peng Long (maternal uncle), Liu Yunyuan (Qin Huasheng’s father), Luo Shiping (Qin Huasheng’s grandfather), He Li (Song Jie), Liu Yuyu (Xiaobianfu/Little Bat), Huang Haonan (Hong Zijie, Lin Wen’s ex-boyfriend), Tian Kaiming (Lin Xuan), A Xia (Lin Xian’s fiancee), Jing Zimo (hoodlum boss), Zeng Junxiong (competition MC), Wu Junfeng (basketball-team captain).

Release: China, 1 Apr 2023.