Love Never Ends

我爱你！

China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 114 mins.

Director: Han Yan 韩延.

Rating: 5/10.

Initially offbeat oldies rom-com becomes more and more generic as it progresses, despite a strong quartet of leads.

STORY

A city in Guangdong province, southern China, the present day, 7 Mar. Chang Weijie (Ni Dahong) is a retired widower who lives alone, following his wife’s death 10 years ago. He once worked in a large entertainment park, which includes a zoo, where his wife was an elephant minder. Due to hyperthyroidism that affects his throat, he talks in a coarse whisper. Fiercely independent, he easily evades the surveillance camera his daughter Chang Caihong (He Peiyu) has installed in his flat to monitor his drinking, and when he goes out for a walk he wears a leather jacket and carries a bullwhip that he likes to practise with in the park. That morning he gets into a heated argument with Li Huiru (Hui Yinghong), a widow who scrapes a living collecting recyclable rubbish, accusing her of disrupting those who are dancing or exercising in the park. Chang Caihong asks him to look after her young son, Liang Sai (Jiang Lixing), for a couple of days, including taking him to an appointment with Qiu Meiling (Lu Qiuping), a retired Cantonese opera performer who takes a small number of pupils. Chang Weijie is annoyed when the boy is turned down by the moody Qiu Meiling; he’s also surprised to see Li Huiru having a meal in the singer’s flat. Seeing Chang Weijie drinking from a bottle, Li Huiru chases after him and tries – unsuccessfully – to get him arrested for drunk driving, in revenge for how he’d treated her in the park. Meanwhile, Chang Weijie’s granddaughter Liang Xiaoqing (Cheng Guo), unhappy at the way her parents are against her going abroad to live with her boyfriend, moves in with him. At his daughter’s request, Chang Weijie goes back to see Qiu Meiling, who finally agrees to take the boy on as a pupil. While there, he bumps again into Li Huiru, who is storing her rubbish bags in a passageway; annoyed by her truculence, he reports her to the police but ends up paying the RMB500 fine himself – which, unlike her, he can easily afford. Afterwards, feeling guilty, he helps her transport her rubbish bags to Xie Dingshan (Liang Jiahui), who pays her a tiny amount by the kilo. Xie Dingshan also has his own problems, including a beloved wife, Zhao Huanxin (Ye Tong), with advanced Alzheimer’s and children who never visit him unless they want money. The next day Chang Weijie spots Zhao Huanxin wandering alone in the park and contacts Xie Dingshan and Li Huiru to collect her. Gradually, the four get to know each other better, and Chang Weijie and Li Huiru become especially close.

REVIEW

Following his biggest box-office success, cancer movie A Litte Red Flower 送你一朵小红花 (2020) with Mainland boybander Yi Yangqianxi 易烊千玺, Shandong-born film-maker Han Yan 韩延 returns with Love Never Ends 我爱你！, an oldies romance between a grumpy retired widower and an equally grumpy old woman who collects recyclable rubbish. What initially looks like being an offbeat rom-com becomes, alas, more and more generic and soppy as the over-long running-time progresses, largely sustained by fine performances from its two veteran leads, Mainland actor Ni Dahong 倪大红 and Hong Kong actress Hui Yinghong 惠英红 [Kara Hui]. Despite its faults and potentially limited appeal, the film managed to take RMB428 million on release this summer, a fine hawl for such a subject with no young stars.

A variable director whose thin scripts (gamer movie Animal World 动物世界, 2018) are often rescued by strong casts (First Time 第一次, 2012, with veteran actress Jiang Shan 江珊; Go Away Mr. Tumor! 滚蛋吧！ 肿瘤君, 2015, with actress Bai Baihe 白百何), Han, 40, has frequently adapted manga and/or South Korean material. First Time was freely based on a Korean weepie, Mr. Tumor! on a Chinese manga, and Animal World on a Japanese one. Love Never Ends is adapted from a work (그대를 사랑합니다, literally “I Love You”) by popular South Korean online cartoonist Gang Do-yeong 강도영 | 康道永 (aka Gang Pul 강풀 | 姜草 or Kang Full) that was first published online in 2007 and later in book form (see cover, above). As well as being adapted into a play (2008) and a 16-part TV drama (2012), it was also made into a film, Late Blossom 그대를 사랑합니다 (2011), directed by Chu Chang-min 추창민 | 秋昌旼 and starring Yi Sun-jae 이순재 | 李顺载, that became a sleeper hit in South Korea (see poster, left).

The Chinese adaptation, by no less than five writers, including Han himself and Han Jinliang 韩今谅 (A Little Red Flower), differs considerably in setting from the original manga, which took place in a hillside village where the grumpy main character delivers milk on his noisy motorbike. By contrast, Love Never Ends is set in an unnamed metropolis in southern China that’s both Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking (i.e. somewhere in Guangdong province, across from Hong Kong): the main male character is a retired widower who used to work in an amusement park and whose wife died 10 years ago. In other respects, however, the film broadly follows the original story, with another elderly couple making up a quartet of aged friends.

The casting of the main roles is the film’s big strength, with all of the actors in their early 60s and bringing reputations to match. Ni, the sole Mainlander, plays against type as a quietly-spoken but fearless widower who likes the odd drink or three, practises with his bullwhip in the park, and isn’t afraid to say what he thinks. His takedown of the hypocrisy shown at a funeral by the deceaseds’ children is one of the film’s highlights. In a southern-set movie whose dialogue is part-Mandarin and part-Cantonese, the other three actors, all Hong Kongers, blend seamlessly. In another “oldie” role that’s much more naturally observed than her blind mother in Sunshine of My Life 一路瞳行 (2022), Hui easily matches Ni’s strong screen presence, while Liang Jiahui 梁家辉 [Tony Leung Ka-fai] is colourful without being o.t.t. as a rubbish dealer who’s devoted to his Alzheimer’s-riddled wife (Ye Tong 叶童 [Cecilia Yip], almost unrecognisable in a smaller and largely mute part). Supporting roles are often used to emphasise generational differences, with younger people perpetually on their phones during family get-togethers or even – in the film’s scariest scene – one legalistic millennial asking the oldies to sign a waver against causing trouble at a boozy dinner.

However, even a cast as strong as here is limited by a script that becomes more and more pat as it develops, especially in the final 20 minutes that includes plenty of conventional melodrama, a rote “happy” end, and even a final montage of merry oldsters dancing around with a hosepipe. With its restless editing, busy montage sequences and apparently unconventional characters, the film’s first half promises a different take on the oldie genre. But the emotional architecture gradually becomes very cosy and familiar, with oldsters portrayed as either cute or sad.

One major plot development, in which a character calmly returns to a ruined home in the country after 30 years away, strains credulity. Added to which, Han’s early directing flourishes – starting with a main-title sequence centred on Ni’s character switching the line on and off – seem increasingly meaningless, as well as one-off ideas like the old opera singer’s flat filled with fluttering birds. Mobile photography by new name Da Jiang 大江 [real name: Zhang Jiang 张江] has a naturally-lit, darkish look; music is supportive but unmemorable.

The film’s Chinese title means “I Love You!”. Others with the same title (but without an exclamation mark) include notable Mainland drama I Love You 我爱你 (2002), directed by Zhang Yuan 张元 and starring Xu Jinglei 徐静蕾 and Tong Dawei 佟大为, and impressive Hong Kong psychodrama …Till Death Do Us Part 我爱你 (1998), directed by Li Rengang 李仁港 [Daniel Lee] and starring Yuan Yongyi 袁咏仪 [Anita Yuen] and Fang Zhongxin 方中信 [Alex Fong Chung-sun].

CREDITS

Presented by Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), China Film (CN), Shanghai Film Group (CN), Zhejiang Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN).

Script: Han Yan, Han Jinliang, Li Liangwen, Chen Wenjie, Hu Zechen. Original story: Gang Pul. Photography: Da Jiang [Zhang Jiang]. Editing: Tan Xiangyuan. Music: Ji Yuan, Wang Na’na. Art direction: Song Xiaojie. Styling: Tang Ning. Sound: Wang Gang, Liu Xiaosha. Visual effects: Jiang Chao. Executive direction: Liu Bin.

Cast: Ni Dahong (Chang Weijie), Hui Yinghong [Kara Hui] (Li Huiru), Liang Jiahui [Tony Leung Ka-fai] (Xie Dingshan), Ye Tong [Cecilia Yip] (Zhao Huanxin), Liu Yajin (Sun Guangzhi), Cheng Guo (Liang Xiaoqing), Jiang Shenwei (Sun Guangzhi’s son), He Peiyu (Chang Caihong), Sun Zhengyu (Chang Jian), Lu Qiuping (Qiu Meiling), Zhang Lixing (Liang Sai), Cui Song (Xie Weide), Niu Liyan (Xie Weimiao), Zhang Xiaoyu (Chang Xiaoqing’s friend), Yang Bo (Xiaotong).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Opening Film), 9 Jun 2023.

Release: China, 21 Jun 2023.