Moments We Shared
云边有个小卖部
China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 130 mins.
Director: Zhang Jiajia 张嘉佳.
Rating: 8/10.
Return-to-roots light comedy is an impressive second outing as a director by Mainland writer Zhang Jiajia, helped by a terrific cast and well-structured screenplay.
STORY
Yunbian township, somewhere in southern China, summer 2000. Despite the mockery of his maternal grandmother Wang Yingying – who owns a small corner shop and has raised him since his mother left when he was four – primary school student Liu Shisan studies hard as he wants eventually to leave the countryside and go to university in the city. He becomes friends with the tomboyish, straight-talking Cheng Shuang, a transfer student from the city. But one day she confesses she has a terminal illness, and before the summer is over she’s already gone back to the city, leaving Liu Shisan sad. Liu Shisan eventually goes to university and, after various jobs, finally joins a large company selling insurance. He (Peng Yuchang) has a girlfriend, Mu Dan (Tian Yitong), and shares a flat with Zhi (Ma Boqian), a pal from college days. However, despite his positive attitude, he’s not doing very well at his job. In the space of one day – 29 Apr 2017 – he’s ditched by Mu Dan, has a drunken row with his arrogant boss Yan Xiaowen (Zhang Youwei) – betting him he can sell 1,000 insurance policies in a year – and is deserted by flatmate Zhi. Disconsolate, he passes out in his flat and wakes up next morning in his grandmother’s home above her corner shop in Yunbian. Guyu 谷雨 (Grain Rain), the 6th solar term, late April. Liu Shisan can’t remember how he got there, but is welcomed by his jocular grandmother (Ailiya). Later, Cheng Shuang (Zhou Ye), whom he hasn’t seen since childhood and whom he thought was dead, suddenly shows up and moves in. When she learns of the wager with his boss, she says he can easily sell 1,000 insurance policies in Yunbian, which has a population of 40,000, many of whom know his grandmother. Still as hot-tempered as ever, she insists on helping him. They first visit Niu Datian (Kong Lianshun), who used to be a fat idiot in primary school but is now an entrepreneur running a shady business from a warehouse. He insists on being called “CEO Niu” and shown respect; after a big argument Liu Shisan and Cheng Shuang leave. During lunch they are “adopted” by a precocious young girl, Wang Qiuqiu (Chen Xian’en), the daughter of crazed vagabond Wang Yong (Lin Jiachuan), who was once cheated out of all his money; on Cheng Shuang’s urging, they take Wang Qiuqiu back to live with them in grandmother’s house. Wang Qiuqiu tells them a secret, that Niu Datian fancies respectable office worker Qin Xiaozhen (Zhang Yifan). When they confront Niu Datian with this information, he promises to buy insurance policies for all his 34 employees if they can help him succeed with Qin Xiaozhen. They acquire two tickets from local headmistress Luo (Chen Yanxi) for an in-demand concert, and the romance finally ends happily. Xiaoshu 小暑 (Lesser Heat), the 11th solar term, mid-July. Liu Shisan sells insurance policies to both headmistress Luo and also town bully Mao Zhijie (Wang Dalu), who sponges off his deaf-and-dumb elder sister Mao Tingting (Wang Luodan) who runs a pedicurist’s. Everything is going well, but then Mu Dan suddenly shows up, to test her relationship with Liu Shisan. The embarrassing situation is eventually settled, and serves to light a fire under the vague relationship between Liu Shisan and Cheng Shuang. Liqiu 立秋 (Start of Autumn), the 13th solar term, mid-August. The extended family of Liu Shisan, his grandmother, Cheng Shuang and Wang Qiuqiu have a dinner to celebrate the mid-autumn festival. Later, on 10 Oct, Mao Tingting marries one of her clients, Han Niu (Qiao Shan), but during the ceremony news arrives that Wang Yong has run amok with an axe and accidentally injured Qin Xiaozhen during her work. Xiaoxue 小雪 (Lesser Snow), the 20th solar term, late November-early December. Wang Yingying is told the cancer she has been hiding from everyone is now terminal. Dahan 大寒 (Great Cold), the 24th solar term, late January. Yunbian is covered in snow, and Wang Yingying has come from the hospital to die in her own home. Chunfen 春分 (Spring Equinox), the 4th solar term. Cheng Shuang has some surprising news for Liu Shisan.
REVIEW
Following his debut as a director with See You Tomorrow 摆渡人 (2016) – freely adapted from his own short story, with a name cast, and produced by Hong Kong’s Wang Jiawei 王家卫 [Wong Kar-wai] – best-selling Mainland writer Zhang Jiajia 张嘉佳 finally climbs back into the directing chair with his second feature, Moments We Shared 云边有个小卖部, a return-to-roots light comedy based on his own novel (see cover, left). It’s a happy return in so many respects, free of the exhausting overkill of Tomorrow and its grandstanding Shanghai bar-culture types, and imbued instead with a human warmth and quiet humour as it looks at smalltown life and friendships somewhere in southern China. Though a tad long at over two hours, it’s sustained by a well-structured script and a terrific cast, led by youngsters Peng Yuchang 彭昱畅, 29, and Zhou Ye 周也, 26, alongside veteran Ailiya 艾丽娅 as the main character’s jolly grandmother. It took an appreciative RMB499 million at this summer’s Mainland box office.
Between his two directing gigs, Jiangsu-born Zhang, 44, hasn’t exactly been idle. As well as adapting his own short story for the successful romantic drama I Belonged to You 从你的全世界路过 (2016, dir. Zhang Yibai 张一白), released a few months before Tomorrow, he also wrote the 2018 novel on which Moments is based, was a producer on the likeable smalltown comedy Bath Buddy 沐浴之王 (2020, dir. Yi Xiaoxing 易小星), and took part in reality TV series Meet Friends and Lovers 遇见友情人 (2022). His slowness to return to the stressful job of directing may be due to the fact that he suffers from Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome and had two heart attacks while working on See You Tomorrow.
The slightly soggy English title of the film (and novel) doesn’t reflect the generally unsentimental tone, better reflected by the Chinese one, which has a double meaning – “Yunbian Has a Corner Shop” or “By the Clouds Is a Corner Shop”. But it does reflect the underlying theme of people bound by a common (smalltown) background – to which, as the grandmother says, everyone finally returns home. Parallel with this idea is another, of people trying to prove their worth, that they are something. This is the main driver behind Liu Shisan (“Thirteen Liu”), first shown studying hard at primary school with his eyes even then on university and a move to the big city, but then finding that the big city isn’t quite the paradise he imagined. Ditched by his girlfriend as a loser, and bullied by his boss as a useless salesman, he ends up back in the country town where he grew up. There he meets again a tomboyish girl he thought was dead, and with her support proves himself by selling insurance policies to the locals.
The plot of a Gen-90er finally realising his dreams is not especially original, but its treatment is fresh: Liu Shisan succeeds not in the big city but back in his home township, and along the way is helped by a colourful assortment of characters that aren’t the usual rural stereotypes. Most original of all is the film’s start – 11 minutes of animation that take Liu Shisan from primary school to his current job with no hint that the film is eventually going to become a live-action movie. The animation is charming but conventional, but after it disappears following the main titles it’s already set the slightly offbeat tone.
Following his strong turn alongside actress Li Gengxi 李庚希 in odd-couple rom-com Viva la vida 我们一起摇太阳 (2024), the boyish-looking Peng (Our Shining Days 闪光少女, 2017; Go Brother 快把我哥带走, 2018) is here paired with another offbeat young actress, Chongqing-born Zhou, who was so good as the dreamer in post-modern fairytale Flaming Cloud 三贵情史 (2023) and especially as the female lead in youth romance Yesterday Once More 倒数说爱你 (2023). (Earlier, she was the privileged leader of the school bullies in Better Days 少年的你, 2019.) Peng and Zhou aren’t required to carry the whole film as in Viva la vida, but their characters’ odd-couple relationship – friendship or romance? – provides a firm base for the whole movie, with Zhou especially good as the enigmatic female lead.
As the grandmother with a crazy cackle, Inner Mongolian actress Ailiya, still going strong as she edges 60, etches a moving role that proves pivotal to the whole plot (as we learn near the end), while eight-year-old actress Chen Xian’en 陈贤恩 makes an assured big-screen debut as a homeless brat who’s befriended by the young leads. Well-known names pepper the cast, but always as well-developed characters, not just one-dimensional cameos: among many, there’s Wang Dalu 王大陆 as the town bully, Wang Luodan 王珞丹 (in a rare big-screen outing) as his long-suffering sister, Taiwan’s Chen Yanxi 陈妍希 [Michelle Chen] as a middle-aged headmistress, Inner Mongolian-born comedienne Li Jiaqi 李嘉琦 (formerly known as Lamuyangzi 辣目洋子) as an office colleague of Liu Shisan, comedian Qiao Shan 乔杉 as a romantic customer of Wang Luodan’s character, and comedian/director Yi (Surprise 万万没想到, 2015; Bath Buddy; Godspeed 人生路不熟, 2023) as a security man. Many are friends or colleagues of director Zhang.
On the technical side, Zhang has assembled a top-flight crew – from noted Taiwan-born d.p. Li Pingbin 李屏宾 [Mark Lee], whose widescreen photography imparts a warm quality to the township without over-romanticising it; through composer Dong Dongdong 董冬冬, whose simpatico scoring rarely over-eggs the mixture; to ace Hong Kong editor Lin An’er 林安儿 [Angie Lam], whose work speaks for itself. The movie’s final third could take a 10-minute trim, but it’s still affecting despite some exaggeration of the never-give-up message. Set during the course of one year, with captions marking some of the 24 solar terms that mark country life, the film was largely shot in and around Ningbo, Zhejiang province, from Jun-Sep 2023.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Deep Focus Pictures (CN), Nanjing Sea of Time Film (CN), Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN), Beijing Baination Pictures (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Beijing Glory Light Film (CN). Produced by Beijing Shendingge Media (CN), Shendingge Culture Media Wuxi (CN).
Script: Zhang Jiajia, Wu Mengjiao. Novel: Zhang Jiajia. Photography: Li Pingbin [Mark Lee]. Editing: Lin An’er [Angie Lam]. Music: Dong Dongdong. Art direction: Shu Xingjia. Costumes: Zhang Huiyun. Styling: Wang Tao. Sound: Chen Kaili, Wang Yanwei. Action: Mu Haijun. Visual effects: Lin Zhemin. Animation: Pocket Chocolate. Executive direction: Gao Zhuangzhuang.
Cast: Peng Yuchang (Liu Shisan), Zhou Ye (Cheng Shuang), Ailiya (Wang Yingying), Chen Xian’en (Wang Qiuqiu), Kong Lianshun (Niu Datian), Zhang Yifan (Qin Xiaozhen), Tian Yitong (Mu Dan), Lin Jiachuan (Wang Yong), Wang Luodan (Mao Tingting), Wang Dalu (Mao Zhijie), Ma Boqian (Zhi, Liu Shisan’s flatmate), Meng Ziyi (Tang Tang, policewoman), Chen Yanxi [Michelle Chen] (Luo, headmistress), Li Jiaqi [Lamuyangzi] (Wu, Liu Shisan’s female office colleague), Zhang Youwei (Yan Xiaowen, Liu Shisan’s boss), Yi Xiaoxing (Xiaoxing, security man), Teng Zhe (Xiaoteng, security man), Wang Tianfang (Xiaowang, security man), Shen Nan (wedding MC), Liu Haoran (Liu Aping, waiter), Qiao Shan (Han Niu), Zhao Lusi (Yingtao, cafe owner), Liu Ruiqiao (noodle restaurant owner).
Release: China, 22 Jun 2024.