My People My Homeland
我和我的家乡
China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 153 mins.
Supervising director: Ning Hao 宁浩.
Directors: Ning Hao 宁浩 (I), Xu Zheng 徐峥 (III), Chen Sicheng 陈思诚 (II), Yan Fei 闫非 (V), Peng Damo 彭大魔 (V), Deng Chao 邓超 (IV), Yu Baimei 俞白眉 (IV).
Rating: 7/10.
Follow-up to last year’s National Day blockbuster is equally star-studded but lighter and more comic in tone, as well as more consistent.
STORY
China, the present day. I: “The Good People of Beijing” 北京好人. Beijing. Car-park attendant Zhang Beijing (Ge You) has been saving hard to buy a smart car so he can start a chauffeuring business. One day he’s visited by a long-lost cousin from out of town (Zhang Zhanyi), who needs RMB700,000 or more for an operation for a thyroid tumour. As this is the same price as the car he intends to buy, Zhang Beijing is equivocal about helping out his cousin. Instead, he proposes a scam whereby his cousin disguises himself and uses Zhang Beijing’s state health insurance card. The two set off for a hospital appointment. II: “A UFO Falls from the Sky” 天上掉下个UFO. Guizhou province, southern China. Ever since a UFO was spotted by local inventor Huang Dabao (Huang Bo) during the Mid-Autumn Festival, tourism in Afu village has boomed. Tang (Wang Baoqiang), a director from a satellite TV station, and his assistant Xiaoqin (Liu Haoran) arrive to make a documentary and are hosted by village head Wang Shouzheng (Wang Yanhui) and village tourism head Wang Chuqi (Wang Xun). Tang suspects Huang Dabao, who’s become an internet celebrity, is behind the hoax, and insists on visiting the site where the UFO is meant to have landed. III: “The Final Class” 最后一课. Qiandaohu (Thousand Island Lake) scenic area, Zhejiang province, eastern China. After collapsing from a stroke at work in Switzerland, elderly university professor Fan (Fan Wei) is taken back to his home village of Wangxi by his son (Xu Zheng) and his Swiss wife (Lu Jingshan), as doctors have said the old man’s mind is stuck in a specific past period, when he was a teacher at an elementary school there. Though the area has now modernised out of all recognition, his son decides to recreate the original rural school of 1992, so his father can teach a final class there. Local Party secretary Jiang Dalei (Lei Jiayin) gets everyone to help, as a demonstration of gratitude for what Fan did back then. IV: “The Road Back Home” 回乡之路. Northern Shaanxi province, central China. Hard-headed internet celebrity saleswoman Yan Feiyan (Yan Ni) flies back to her hometown of Shaligou for the 40th anniversary of her school. On the plane she bumps into pushy businessman Qiao Shulin (Deng Chao), who claims to have been a classmate (though six years apart). She finally remembers him as a small kid at the school and, after her assistant Jessica (Wang Ziwen) tells her Qiao Shulin is actually broke and looking for money, decides to play a game with him. V: The Magical Touches 神笔马亮. Xihong municipality, somewhere in central China. Ma Liang (Shen Teng), an art teacher at the city’s cultural activities foundation, is designated to be sent to the countryside to help alleviate rural poverty. However,his wife Qiu Xia (Ma Li), trainer of the city’s wrestling team, forcefully objects, as Ma Liang is about to go to the Repin Academy of Fine Art in Russia. One year later, Qiu Xia is heavily pregnant and constantly in touch with Ma Liang by video link. Little does she know that Ma Liang is actually not far away, in Huixiang village, where the local economy is prospering and everyone is in on the deception. All goes well until Qiu Xia decides to take a short break in the countryside with two friends (Zhang Yiming, Lamu Yangzi) and by chance chooses Huixiang village.
REVIEW
This year’s “official” National Day movie is a much lighter and more consistent cocktail than last year’s, unburdened by the need to celebrate the PRC’s 70th anniversary in any portentous way and more united this time by common themes. Re-using the short-story, celeb-heavy model of My People, My Country 我和我的祖国 (2019), but cutting the number of segments from seven down to a more manageable five and opting for a comic tone in all of them, My People My Homeland 我和我的家乡 is a smart collection of tales centred on the theme of one’s hometown in which various forms of deception are unmasked but – against expectations – accommodated rather than punished. After 16 days on release, it’s taken over RMB2.3 billion and beaten off competition from other Golden Week contenders like volleyball movie Leap 夺冠 and CG fantasy Jiang Ziya 姜子牙 to still hold the top place. The take so far is just below the figure this time last year for My People, My Country, which finally ended its run after 84 days with RMB3.1 billion. [Final tally was RMB2.8 billion.]
The change from Chen Kaige 陈凯歌 to Ning Hao 宁浩 as supervising director – backed by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 this time as supervising creative producer 总监制 and Zhang Yibai 张一白 as supervising planner 总策划 – reflects the lighter tone and accent on absurdist comedy. Ning, 43, kicks the whole thing off with the tale of a crafty Beijinger who wangles his way out of paying for a long-lost cousin’s operation by trying to put it through on his own state health insurance card. Featuring veteran comedian Ge You 葛优 in the same role (Zhang Beijing, a kind of Beijing Everyman) as in Ning’s episode for My People, My Country, and with a very similar Chinese title, “The Good People of Beijing” 北京好人 is clearly linked to the earlier film but is much sharper in its satire. It also has great chemistry between Ge and non-pro Zhang Zhanyi 张占义 (the sidekick investigator in rural comedy Summer Detective 平原上的夏洛克, 2019) as his dim country cousin, and features a surprisingly beneficent pay-off that sets the general tone for all the subsequent episodes.
The least subtle of the quintet is the second tale, “A UFO Falls from the Sky” 天上掉下个UFO, directed by Chen Sicheng 陈思诚 and stuffed with name comics not noted for their under-acting (Huang Bo 黄渤, Wang Baoqiang 王宝强, Wang Xun 王迅). It has the feel of a clever confection that taps into audiences’ expectations, with Wang and young actor Liu Haoran 刘昊然 (from Chen’s Detective Chinatown 唐人街探案 franchise) as a couple of TV reporters, and Huang (last year in Ning’s Crazy Alien 疯狂的外星人) as a rural inventor who may have engineered a UFO prank. With everyone using either a funny voice (Wang) or heavy regional accent (Huang), and plenty of pratfall comedy, it’s very different in tone from the other stories but also, at 26 minutes, almost the shortest.
Also getting by on sheer star power, though much more focused and less manic, is episode four, “The Road Back Home” 回乡之路. The latest collaboration between comedian Deng Chao 邓超 and writer Yu Baimei 俞白眉 after directing three features together (The Breakup Guru 分手大师, 2014; Devil and Angel 恶棍天使, 2015; Looking Up 银河补习班, 2019), it’s basically a two-hander between Deng as a pushy businessman and comedienne Yan Ni 闫妮 as an older celebrity entrepreneur who meet on a trip back home to their school’s 40th anniversary. Deng, 41, and Yan, 49, have been in the same films before but never done a double-act like this, and her cool assurance and his cockiness make fine screen chemistry, with the slim material never pushed beyond its limitations and a neat emotional twist at the end. At 24 minutes, it’s the shortest of the bunch.
The very best, however, comes in the middle and at the end, with the underlying theme of deception raised to especially inventive levels in the hands of accomplished farceurs. In “The Final Class” 最后一课 actor-director Xu Zheng 徐峥 (who contributed the very respectable Shanghai episode to My People, My Country) lets his gift for the surreal roam more freely, as a whole Zhejiang town reconstructs a 1990s rural schoolhouse for a dotty professor (veteran comedian Fan Wei 范伟) to relive his past. Like many Mainland films it cleverly walks a line between nostalgia for a simpler past and the fact that modernisation is irreversible (and officially desirable); but it’s consistently amusing in its details of the villagers’ deception as well as technically very slick (such as a circular tracking shot in which Fan travels back almost 40 years).
Just pipping that episode in sheer originality is the final one – at 35 minutes, the longest – in which stage/film comedian Shen Teng 沈腾 and his Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花 colleague Ma Li 马丽 (Goodbye Mr. Loser 夏洛特烦恼, 2015; Heart for Heaven 一念天堂, 2015; Never Say Die 羞羞的铁拳, 2017) reunite in a typically irreal satire, penned and directed by the Ma Hua team of Yan Fei 闫非 and Peng Damo 彭大魔 (Loser; Hello Mr. Billionaire 西虹市首富, 2018). A clever idea in which a husband pretends to his wife that he’s in Russia when he’s actually down the road in a Chinese village, the film opens in Billionaire‘s fictional Xihong City 西虹市 (the name of Shen’s production company, which also sounds like “tomato” in Chinese), with Shen as a wimpy art teacher and Ma as his domineering wife who’s also the city’s wrestling coach. The bulk of the story is set a year later and, although they’re mostly communicating by video link, Shen and Ma have an effortless comic chemistry, with Ma this time the stooge. The various deceptions played by Shen’s character are inventive but never allowed to go too far over the top – and a final song of reconciliation, harmony with minorities and the zeal of peasant husbandry is presumably straightfaced satire.
Like its predecessor and any CNY movie, this one is full of celebrity cameos, some blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em. “The Road Back Home” alone has action star Wu Jing 吴京 as a Shaanbei boss, Deng’s actress wife Sun Li 孙俪 as an air hostess, tubby comic Yue Yunpeng 岳云鹏 as an airport Romeo, and Dai Lele 代乐乐 as another air hostess. The five stories are separated by brief multi-screens of ordinary people talking about their hometowns and “the taste of home”.
Unlike My People, My Country, only one of the episodes – the last – has an English title, and rather a strange one at that (The Magical Touches); the Chinese means “Ma Liang’s Magic Brush”, referring to the painter’s skill at faking backgrounds. (The English titles given above of the other four episodes are literal translations, and therefore put in inverted commas. That for the first episode is an untranslatable pun which could equally mean “Good Person Beijing”, as in Zhang Beijing, the unlikely named main character.)
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN), China Film (CN), Shanghai Dirty Monkeys Studios (CN), Beijing Lifeng Culture Development (CN), Tianjin Wansong Enterprise Management Consulting (CN), Shanghai Such A Good Film (CN), Beijing Joy Leader Culture & Communication (CN), As One Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Slinky Town Pictures (Tianjin) (CN), Tianjin Orange Image Media (CN). Produced by Hainan Ruyue Fangsheng Film & TV Culture Communication (CN) (I), Taitong (Tianjin) Film & TV Culture Communication (CN) (II), Beijing Zhenledao Cultural Broadcasting (CN) (III), Horgos Orange Image Pictures (CN) (IV), Slinky Town Pictures (Tianjin) (CN) (V).
Script: uncredited (I, IV); Liu Wusi (II); Bululufu, He Keke, Hua Weilin, Xu Zheng (III); Peng Damo, Yan Fei, Su Wenxiong, Sun Xiaoxian (V). Photography: Wang Boxue (I); Liu Yin (II); Cao Yu (III); Wang Dayong (IV); Sun Ming (V). Editing: Qiao Aiyu (I); Tang Hongjia (II); Zhou Xiaolin (III, V); Tu Yiran (IV). Music: Li Heng (I); Hu Xiao’ou (II); Peng Fei (III, V); Zhao Lin (IV). Art direction: Liu Qiang (I); Zhao Xuehao (II); Gao Ang (III); Bai Lingtong (IV); Wang Shuo (V). Styling: Liu Qiang, Hairihan (I); Liang Tingting (II); Gao Ang, Lei Shuyu (III); Liu Qian (IV); Fu Lei (V). Sound: Wang Danrong (I); Wang Gang, Liu Xiaosha (II); Yang Jiang (III); Huang Zheng (IV); Zhao Nan (V). Action: Sui Xiaoyuan (II). Executive direction: Cai Jing (I); Zhang Zhe (II); Cheng Ya’nan (III).
Cast: I: Ge You (Zhang Beijing/Erdan), Zhang Zhanyi (cousin), Liu Mintao (Lingzi, hospital nurse), Zhang Yu (policeman), Yang Xinming (Ning, hospital doctor), Zhang Zixian (A&E doctor), Lv Xing, Hao Yun (singer), Yue Xiaojun (Xiaojun, young patient), Yan Dong (twins), Gao Ruifei’er (nurse); II: Huang Bo (Huang Dabao), Wang Baoqiang (Tang, TV director), Liu Haoran (Xiaoqin, Tang’s assistant), Wang Yanhui (Wang Shouzheng, village head), Wang Xun (Wang Chuqi, village tourism head), Dong Zijian (Dong Kexue, scientist), Tong Liya (Dong Wenhua, Dong Kexue’s sister), Peng Yuchang (young Huang Dabao), Guo Fan (himself); III: Fan Wei (Fan, professor), Han Haolin (young Jiang Xiaofeng), Lei Jiayin (Jiang Dalei, Party secretary), Zhang Yi (Jiang Qianfang), Tao Hong (Jiang Xiaohong), Yu Hewei (Jiang Wei’an), Xu Zheng (Xiaofan, Fan’s son), Li Yifeng (Jiang Xiaofeng), Wang Junkai (Jiang Xiaokai), Li Chen (Jiang Wenhao), Chen Shu (Jiang, school headmistress), Yang Zi (Jiang Ziya), Lu Jingshan [Celina Jade] (Emma Meier, Xiaofan’s Swiss wife), Cai Die (Jiang Xiaodie), Liu Xuanrui (Jiang Yirui), Zhang Jianya (Jiang, old guy), Zhang Zhihua (Jiang, old lady), Wei Lai (Jiang Xiaocai); IV: Deng Chao (Qiao Shulin/Maodan/Fluffy), Yan Ni (Yan Feiyan), Wang Ziwen (Jessica, Yan Feiyan’s assistant), Wang Yuan (Xiaohan, tour guide), Miao Fu (Wei Peng), Wu Jing (Shaanbei boss), Sun Li (air hostess), Yue Yunpeng (Yue Longgang, fat man at airport), Jia Ling (Jia Yuling, fat woman at airport), Dai Lele (air hostess), Liang Chao (fisherman), Yue Hong (Gao, teacher in past), Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya (e-commerce broadcasters); V: Shen Teng (Ma Liang), Ma Li (Qiu Xia), Wei Xiang (Wei, village head), Zhang Yiming (Chang Mao, photographer), Lamu Yangzi (Mengmeng, Chang Mao’s girlfriend), Han Yanbo (Han, arts foundation head), Zhao Tieren (old guy), Zhao Haiyan, Pan Binlong, Huang Cailun, Sun Guiquan, Tao Liang, Xu Meng.
Release: China, 1 Oct 2020.