Love List
分手清单
China, 2025, colour, 2.35:1, 125 mins.
Directors: Tian Yusheng 田羽生, Xia Yu 夏雨.
Rating: 5/10.
Yuppie relationship comedy is more of the same from writer-director Tian Yusheng (The Ex-Files) but with shallow, uninteresting characters.
STORY
Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, southern China, the present day. After three years together, Ma Tianze (Ou Hao) and Xia Mo (Zeng Mengxue) record a video together, saying they have decided to break up. However, they will still follow the “break-up checklist” they compiled when they were in love with each other. First on the list is “to do the most undignified thing in the most dignified restaurant” – which means taking their clothes off, while stuffing down the expensive food, until the staff throw them out. (They had first met when by chance they shared a table in a Sichuan hotpot restaurant; both had recently broken up with their partners. That night they had got totally blotto together.) Next on the list is “to throw away the other person’s 10 most cherished things” – which they do in front of each other but which gets more and more serious and emotional. (The First Year. He had invited her round to his flat for a hotpot dinner and after that they had started dating. Later she had moved in with him. He was a junior architect working in a government department; she was an assistant clothes designer. After being passed over for the job of team leader, he’d left his job and set up on his own at the flat of his friend, Wu Wang [Zhou You], a second-hand car salesman withb a volatile girlfriend [Cheng Xiao]. He hadn’t told her, as she’d always believed he was going to be successful in his work. He’d almost forgotten their first anniversary until Wu Wang had reminded him that she had arranged a surprise party with all their friends. After getting drunk he had confessed to her that he had set up on his own; and she had realised she was the only one in their group who didn’t know. The Second Year. His work was only going so-so and had needed investment. One potential investor, Ma [Jia Bing], had turned out to be a flaneur. The two of them had started arguing about small things, and the romance of their first year had now gone.) Next on the list is “getting tattoes of the other’s name” – which they do, and later have a brief kiss and cry. (The Third Year. They had stopped quarrelling the whole time but were more estranged than ever, almost leading separate lives and obsessed with their mobile phones. He had become a team leader back in the government job, and both were earning more. At their third anniversary dinner he had proposed to her.) At a dinner on the rooftop, they do the final thing on the break-up list.
REVIEW
Two Gen-90ers meet, spend three years together and then break up – but first do four things they earlier agreed on if they ever separated. It’s a cute idea that doesn’t quite mesh with the rest of the script in Love List 分手清单, which despite being inspired by a short story is basically another in the series of yuppie relationship comedies known as The Ex-Files 前任 (2014-23) by director Tian Yusheng 田羽生 and his regular writing team. That means it gets by more on technique than on substance, and with individual performances providing the topping. But with the central idea not enough to sustain a two-hour movie, it’s difficult to hide the fact that, despite occasional moments, the two central characters aren’t especially interesting. In box-office terms Love List was a non-starter, taking a weedy RMB76 million, nowhere near the billions amassed by the last two Ex-Files and even less than the modest amount (RMB130 million) taken by the first in the series.
The screenplay was loosely inspired by a collection of short stories on contemporary young love that went under the overall title of No Girl No Life (later changed to No Love No Life) 玩命爱一个姑娘, by Song Xiaojun 宋小君 (see cover, left). Published in 2015, the book became an instant hit, and a stage adaptation followed in 2016, directed by Huang Yanzhuo 黄彦卓. The short story that inspired the film was the one from which the collection takes its title, and literally means “Desperately Loving a Girl”. Joining Tian and his regular team of writers is Xia Yu 夏雨 (not to be confused with the well-known Mainland actor with the same name), who worked with Tian on The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan 前任4 英年早婚 (2023) and here also gets a directing credit, his first.
The film starts with them officially breaking up – done, of course, by recording a video on a mobile phone – and then going out and fulfilling the first of the things on their “break-up checklist” (the meaning of the film’s Chinese title). Only as the film starts flashing back to how they met and their first, second and third years together does the audience get to understand the reason for the break-up of a seemingly perfect love match. Their initial meeting and first year living together are easily the most interesting, with the two regularly getting drunk and talking honestly with each other. As the relationship starts to cool, their lack of personality is exposed and, as often in Tian’s films, things are kept going more by the colourful friends and acquaintances.
Well-known comedian Jia Bing 贾冰 is spliced into the film halfway through and gives it a brief fillip as a two-faced investor. But otherwise there’s only the best friend, an eccentric used-car salesman (Zhou You 周游, oddball comedy Lobster Cop 龙虾刑警, 2018, the lead in indie Striding into the Wind 野马分鬃, 2020), and his volatile girlfriend (actress-singer Cheng Xiao 程潇 (the trouble-maker in We Girls 向阳•花, 2025) to disguise how uninteresting the central couple gradually become. Alas, they are not on screen very much. The relationship problems the central characters go through are neither unique nor special, though for the two Gen-90ers they seem so. As the boy, Ou Hao 欧豪, 32, is uninvolving, appearing to cruise through on the strength of his name and youthful looks; as the girl, Zeng Mengxue 曾梦雪, 30, shows again (The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan) how good she is at drunk scenes but, apart from a couple of sequences (her speech at their rooftop dinner, and the film’s coda set three years later), is unable to really animate her character when called upon to be more sober.
The film always looks good thanks to the unexaggerated widescreen photography by new name Ning Mingyuan 宁明远, and editing is smooth and unobtrusive. Music by Wang Qianting 王倩婷 (The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan) is feel-good window-dressing. The running time could easily lose 20 minutes.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), China Film Creative (Beijing) (CN), Xiaoxiang Film Group (CN), New Saint Film Studio (Tianjin) (CN).
Script: The New Saint Screenplay Studio, Xia Yu, Master Tian [Tian Yusheng], Da Kuan [Hu Jiahao], Da Guang [Ma Jingqi]. Short story: Song Xiaojun. Photography: Ning Mingyuan. Editing: Li Jiahua, Li Chimo. Music: Wang Qianting. Production design: Zheng Chen. Art direction: Liu Wen. Costumes: Jing Nan. Sound: Liu Jia.
Cast: Ou Hao (Ma Tianze), Zeng Mengxue (Xia Mo), Zhou You (Wu Wang), Cheng Xiao (Fang Yingying, Wu Wang’s girlfriend), Xu Mengjie (Mi Le, Xia Mo’s best friend), Xiao Kaizhong (Zhao Siyuan, Ma Tianze’s best friend), Jia Bing (Ma), Yue Yang (Ma Tianze’s boss), Luo Mi (Luo, Xia Mo’s boss).
Release: China, 14 Jun 2025.