0.1% World
好想去你的世界爱你
China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 93 mins.
Director: Sun Lin 孙琳.
Rating: 3/10.
Fanciful rom-com’s only original factor is the two millennials being thousands of miles apart.
STORY
Beijing, the present day, winter. Ambitious but also a bit klutzy, An Yi (Zhou Yiran) works as an assistant in an architectural design company where she’s always the first in the office and is always keen to please her demanding boss (Su Qiang). Like several of her work colleagues, she also has a crush on her superior, the handsome Chen Mingyu (Qi Shenghan), but faces competition from office glamourpuss Fangfang (Wei Yunxi). Meanwhile, in a small, picturesque town in Germany, young pianist/composer Gao Ang is bunking in the flat of a Chinese friend (who’s now in hospital) while trying for a job as a pianist and working as a piano tuner to make some money. When An Yi trips and falls on a building site one day, and suffers from concussion, Gao Ang suddenly gets a pain in the head; later, when she learns she’s not eligible for fully-paid sick leave an screams out in frustration, he hears her scream while tuning a piano in a church. The two of them find they can talk to each other across thousands of miles – but Gao Ang is quite hostile to what he sees as an interference in his life, and they immediately start to argue. An Yi suggests three rules: no talking, nothing dangerous, and keep their heart rates under 100 bpm. However, this doesn’t help: An Yi feels the cold when Gao Ang is out in the snow and starts scratching herself when he takes a shower; likewise, he can feel pinpricks when she has acupuncture. One day, after meeting her heroine, the famous architect He Qing (Peng Yang), in a bar and having too many drinks, Gao Ang fails a piano audition because he feels drunk. However, he later helps her with his piano skills when she is called upon to play at an office dinner; her performance, which puts Fangfang’s in the shade, impresses Chen Mingyu. An Yi and Gao Ang finally make peace and become friends, helping each other’s lack of self-confidence. But one night alone in the office Chen Mingyu discovers An Yi’s longtime crush on him, and Gao Ang hears their conversation.
REVIEW
A fanciful youth rom-com, in which the only original element is the two leads being thousands of miles apart, 0.1% World 好想去你的世界爱你 is glossily packaged but otherwise of little interest – and a long hawl – for anyone over 25. The central idea of two self-absorbed millennials finding they’re literally “in each other’s head” – i.e. can hear, talk to, and even feel the other person – runs out of comic energy after the opening half-hour, and neither the script (by no less than six people) nor the principal actors have the heft or natural charm to keep it going. Of the three Valentine’s Day movies released in the Mainland in February, World came in second place, taking a polite RMB108 million behind Ten Years of Loving You 十年一品温如言, itself hardly a smash hit with just RMB167 million.
It’s the feature directing debut of Shandong-born Sun Lin 孙琳, aka A Lang 阿郎, 44, who previously worked on several Cheng Long 成龙 [Jackie Chan] vehicles as either assistant director (The Forbidden Kingdom 功夫之王, 2008; Little Big Soldier 大兵小将, 2010) or as a production executive/script supervisor (Dragon Blade 天将雄师, 2015), recently working in the latter capacity on the quality melodrama Somewhere Winter 大约在冬季 (2019). Sun’s five co-writers on World are mostly from TV, and the script, such as it is, proceeds in episodic TV fashion, capitalising on the kooky antics of Chongqing-born dancer-turned-actress Zhou Yiran 周依然 (Crazy Little Things 为你写诗, 2018) and the look-at-me seriousness of Taiwan actor/model Shi Boyu 施柏宇, also 25, in his big-screen debut.
The fact that the plotting doesn’t make sense even on a fantasy level – given that the pair are meant to be “magically connected” sonically and sensorially 24/7 – probably wasn’t even noticed by its target audience while checking their phones, as well as sloppy mistakes like Shi’s musician being unable to even notate music correctly and Zhou’s architect committing enough blunders to get sacked 10 times over. Helping along the one-joke plot are plenty of soundtrack songs, pleasant but conventional music by Chinese American composer Li He 李赫 (Warm Hug 温暖的抱抱, 2020; To Be with You 我的青春有个你, 2021), cute on-screen graphics, plentiful use of split screen for the leads in their separate countries, and bright, attractive photography in Beijing and Europe by d.p. Zhang Ronghua 张荣华. The German spoken in some of Shi’s scenes is mostly incomprehensible.
The film started production under the Chinese title 好想去你的世界 (literally, “Really Want to Go to Your World”) and with online video platform iQiyi as lead presenter. At some point the title gained 爱你 (“[And] Love You”) at the end and lost iQiyi as a co-financer. Trivia collectors may note that French photographer Anaïs Martane, wife of Mainland actor Liu Ye 刘烨 (City of Life and Death 南京！南京！, 2009; Driverless 无人驾驶, 2010; Island Keeper 守岛人, 2021), cameos as a German landlady near the end of the film. The film’s English title refers to the percentage of one’s acquaintances who really understand you.
CREDITS
Presented by Dino Films (Wuhan) (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Image Media (Beijing) (CN).
Script: Sun Lin, Wang Bo, Hu Xiaoshuai, Li Ting, Ding Rui, Chen Shuhao. Photography: Zhang Ronghua. Editing: Jiang Yijun. Music: Li He. Art direction: Jiu Cheng. Styling: Li Yichen. Sound: Shi Qiyong, Zhang Mingxi. Action: He Jun. Visual effects: Li Geng, Yu Liang. Executive direction: Manman.
Cast: Zhou Yiran (An Yi), Shi Boyu (Gao Ang), Qi Shenghan (Chen Mingyu), Wei Yunxi (Fangfang), Bai Yufei (Xiaowu, An Yi’s work colleague), Peng Yang (He Qing), Su Qiang (An Yi’s boss), Jiao Maiqi (Ma Wen), Anaïs Martane (German landlady), Yuan Qi (client), Liu Chao (fake doctor), Wang Jie (traffic policeman).
Release: China, 14 Feb 2022.