My Best Friend’s Wedding

我最好朋友的婚礼

China/US, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 91 mins.

Directors: Chen Feihong 陈飞宏, Chen Yili 陈奕利 [Alexi Tan].

Rating: 5/10.

Europe-set remake of the 1997 US rom-com refuses to click on any level, despite name leads.

STORY

Milan, the present day. Gu Jia, aka Tutu (Shu Qi), editor-in-chief of a Beijing magazine, arrives to attend the fashion week in the city, where she is met by her assistant Ma Li (Ye Qing). (Gu Jia remembers an idyllic holiday she had there in her late 20s with her best friend, Lin Ran [Feng Shaofeng], who later left China for the UK to pursue his dream of becoming a famous sports commentator.) Soon after she arrives, Gu Jia gets a call from Lin Ran in London, telling her he’s getting married on the coming weekend. Shocked but disguising it, Gu Jia flies the next day to London, leaving Ma Li in charge in Milan; on the plane she’s an emotional wreck, but is calmed down by the passenger next to her, Chinese-speaking Eurasian Nick (Feng Xiaoyue). In London Gu Jia is met by Lin Ran and his gushy fiancee, Meng Yixuan (Song Qian), who take her to their flat in Notting Hill and ask her to be their “best man”. (Gu Jia remembers how Lin Ran kind-of proposed to her on their Milan holiday, but she didn’t seize the chance and he brushed it off as not serious.) While shopping together, Meng Yixuan confesses to Gu Jia she has doubts about marrying Li Ran and, when the couple have an argument, Gu Jia pretends to be a middleman while trying to subvert their relationship. However, when the couple make up, Meng Yixuan ends up loving Li Ran even more. After getting drunk in a pub, Gu Jia wakes up in the flat of Nick, who works there as a barman. Next day, when Gu Jia attends a wedding rehearsal, she introduces Nick as her boyfriend to try to make Li Ran jealous; Nick even pretends to be gay so he won’t stand in the way of Gu Jia and Lin Ran getting together. However, when none of Gu Jia’s wiles seem to work, Nick takes a radical step to help her.

REVIEW

Given Hollywood’s success in screwing up every remake of an Asian film it can get its hands on, it was only a matter of time before the favour was repaid – a task that My Best Friend’s Wedding 我最好朋友的婚礼 fulfils admirably. A Chinese re-tooling of the 1997 rom-com, directed by Australia’s then-fashionable P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding, 1994), it moves the story to touristy Olde Europe (Milan, London) and sets it among upwardly mobile Mainlanders with cash to burn. That ticks several boxes in the current China rom-com cycle, and the cast, led by Taiwan actress Shu Qi 舒淇, 40, and fast-rising Mainland actor Feng Shaofeng 冯绍峰, 37, looks hot on paper. More’s the pity, then, that almost nothing clicks from the start, thanks to a flat, stop-start script, direction that seems perpetually out of sync with the actors, and a severe shortage of acting chemistry where it’s most needed.

From the sketchy main-title credits, with just the presenting companies and the film’s title, through the suspiciously short running time for a supposed prestige production, to the rapidly-rolled end credits, Wedding has all the signs of a production that no one really wants to have their name on. One of three Chinese co-productions announced by Columbia Pictures in 2014 – Monk Comes Down the Mountain 道士下山, directed by Chen Kaige 陈凯歌, was released first, in summer 2015, but the third title has yet to be made – Wedding began shooting in July 2015 in London under director Chen Yili 陈奕利 [Alexi Tan]. It wrapped in September in Beijing, and was originally set to be released on western Valentine’s Day in Feb 2016, at which time it was still attributed to Chen. At some point the release date was delayed six months to just before the so-called “Chinese Valentine’s Day” (aka Qixi Festival 七夕节) and the directing credit switched to Chen Feihong 陈飞宏.

A Manila-born, Taiwan national who was educated in London and New York and started as a fashion photographer, Chen Yili, 48, has had a chequered career so far as a director. Initially under the wing of Lion Rock’s Wu Yusen 吴宇森 [John Woo] and Zhang Jiazhen 张家振 [Terence Chang], Chen made an iffy debut with the period crime drama Blood Brothers 天堂口 (2007) and followed it with the worse than iffy fashion-scene rom-com Color Me Love 爱出色 (2010). Wedding is his third feature, on which he has ended up credited as “London filming director” (actually more than half of the finished movie). His replacement, Chen Feihong, is the nephew of Chen Kaige, studied film-making in the US, has directed commercials, and also worked with his uncle as both an assistant director and executive director. Chen Feihong’s name is the only director on the film’s poster, alongside Teng Huatao 滕华涛 (director of hit rom-com Love Is Not Blind 失恋33天, 2011) as a producer.

Whoever was finally responsible for what, Wedding is still a patched-up job that hardly strikes any sparks, hard as it tries. It’s not the changes to Ron Bass’ original script – most of which are fine, and feel right in a Chinese context – and some dialogue and situations are still recognisable from the 1997 film. The weaknesses of this Wedding go much deeper. As she proved so well in her last rom-com The Last Women Standing 剩者为王 (2015), Shu still has the wherewithal to come up with the goods, both on a rom and on a com level, and light up the screen; in Wedding, however, she’s paddling upstream the whole time against a jerky script, lacklustre dialogue, and styleless direction that has no feel for the genre’s rhythms. Worse, the chemistry between her and Feng has a forced feel: you just don’t believe their friendship, at least on his side. Maybe that’s deliberate, as the remake doesn’t show Feng’s character (played by Dermot Mulroney in the original) swerving at all from his decision to marry, but it doesn’t help the film overall. Despite all that, the massively experienced Shu manages to make the role her own, rather than just a pale copy of the original’s Julia Roberts, and earns the movie an extra point.

Shu actually has much more natural chemistry with 28-year-old Eurasian actor Feng Xiaoyue 凤小岳 [Rhydian Vaughan], a variable performer (Monga 艋舺, 2010; Tiny Times 1 小时代, 2013) who here is surprisingly relaxed and sympathetic as the third party (played by Rupert Everett in the original). Seamlessly moving between English and Mandarin, Feng doesn’t get as much footage as he deserves, but it’s to his credit that he makes his character sympathetic. (In this version, he’s also not gay – to no loss at all.) As the girly-gushy bride, 29-year-old singer-actress Song Qian 宋茜 (My Sassy Girl 2 我的新野蛮女友, 2016) is just okay, making one realise how cleverly judged Cameron Diaz’s performance was in the original. Apart from Ye Qing 叶青 as a likeably bubbly assistant, other roles are just bits, with French fashion designer Christian Louboutin and Vogue China editor Zhang Yu 张宇  [Angelica Cheung] thrown in as cameos.

Widescreen photography by Spain’s Álvaro Gutiérrez (The Invisible Eye La mirada invisible, 2010) is colourful and unashamedly touristy, with London full of bright red buses and handsome landmarks and Milan all ochry old Italian architecture. Foreign locations are now an established part of China rom-coms – showing Mainlanders moving confidently in western society – but in Wedding the touristy bits get in the way of what emotional drama there is. Music by Africa-born, Hollywood-based world musician George Acogny, who also worked on Columbia’s Monk, is unmemorable.

CREDITS

Presented by Columbia Pictures (US), China Film (CN). Produced by China Film (CN), Columbia Pictures (US).

Script: Fu Linran, Yan Yunfei, Hongjiu. Original script: Ron Bass. Photography: Álvaro Gutiérrez. Editing: Tommaso Gallone, Liu Lei. Music/songs: George Acogny. Art direction: Nick Dent (London), Ernesto Mameli (Milan). Costume design: Sean Kunjambu, Karen Tsang. Sound: Wang Danrong. Visual effects: Zhuang Yan.

Cast: Shu Qi (Gu Jia/Tutu), Feng Shaofeng (Lin Ran), Song Qian (Meng Yixuan), Ye Qing (Ma Li, Gu Jia’s assistant), Feng Xiaoyue [Rhydian Vaughan] (Nick), Clem So (Meng Yixuan’s father), Li Luyu (Meng Yixian’s mother), Christian Louboutin, Zhang Yu [Angelica Cheung] (themselves).

Release: China, 5 Aug 2016; US, 12 Aug 2016.