The Journey
一路有你
Malaysia, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 101 mins.
Director: Qingyuan 青元 [Chiu].
Rating: 6/10.
Third heartwarmer from Chinese Malaysian director Qingyuan [Chiu] has a natural charm but thin plot.
STORY
Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, Chinese New Year’s Eve, 2012. After attending the wedding meal for the daughter of a neighbour, Zhang Dongjian (Chen Hua), and being shocked by its small size and informality, Wu Zhiquan (Li Shiping) vows that he will throw a traditional banquet if his daughter Wu Meirong (You Fengyin), who is an art student in the UK, ever marries. Later that day she suddenly turns up, with her British fiance, Benji Harris (Ben Pfeiffer), in tow. Wu Zhiquan had peremptorily sent his daughter away to the UK when she was eight, following the death of her mother, and since then they had become estranged. Wu Zhiquan is hostile towards her marrying a westerner, and Benji Harris becomes irritated by his attitude. During an argument, Wu Meirong tells Benji Harris that she’s pregnant, but she keeps the news secret from her father. Finally, Wu Zhiquan agrees to the marriage but says he wants at least a 50-table banquet to which he will invite all his childhood friends: at primary school they all had animal nicknames, forming a Chinese zodiac. (Wu Zhiquan was “Ox”.) He also insists on hand delivering the invitations along with Benji Harris on the latter’s motorbike. The pair first visit “Rabbit Xing” (Yang Lingfeng) in Penang, where they also take part in local New Year celebrations. They next visit “Doggie” (Huo Yinglai), “Black Rooster” (Kong Dequan) and former class monitor Zhu Zhongmin (Lin Yuancheng), but Wu Zhiquan leaves in a huff when his daughter turns up. As their journey around the country continues, Wu Zhiquan and Benji Harris form a tacit understanding, even though neither speaks the other’s language. After visiting the only non-Chinese in their school group, Fatimah (Sherry Aljeffri), Wu Zhiquan decides to return home to celebrate his and his daughter’s birthday. But she has taken a trip to Sabah, without telling her father.
REVIEW
Three years after his popular second feature, and just in time for Visit Malaysia Year, director Zhou Qingyuan 周青元 [Chiu Keng Guan], aka Qingyuan 青元 [Chiu], returns with another Chinese New Year heartwarmer that this time tours some of Peninsula Malaysia’s most beautiful scenery, with only the merest sliver of a plot attached. The Journey 一路有你 is infused with the same Chinese Malaysian values as Zhou’s Woohoo! 大日子 (2010) and Great Day 天天好天 (2011) – respect for traditions, plus family and community values – but this time with a more ironic, less didactic edge than the second movie. Even though the script is very episodic, Zhou again manages to cruise along almost on empty, charming the audience with a combination of unpretentiousness and utter simplicity. Only occasionally, as in a hot-air balloon section that’s a pure feel-good device, do the joins show.
Production values are the slickest to date. Replacing Zhou’s previous d.p. Yang Junlin 杨俊麟, Yang Dewei 杨德威 (Sell Out!, 2008) serves up one after another succulent widescreen landscape through which the main character, an aged widower, travels as he delivers invitations for his daughter’s wedding. The film is saved from being a glorified promo for the Ministry of Tourism by the performances by the elder cast, led by non-professional Li Shiping 李世平. Another in Zhou’s gallery of grumpy old men, Li carves out his own identity as Wu Zhiquan, a Cantonese-speaking Chinese who can’t get used to what he sees as the younger generation’s lack of respect for traditional values. The 73-year-old Li, who’s never acted before, communicates more in a look or muttered insult than other players do in yards of dialogue. Zhou surrounds him with a solid cast of feisty elders as his childhood friends, creating a warm ensemble that drives the whole movie.
The twist is that Wu Zhiquan’s daughter, after being sent as a child to the UK, has come back with a white fiance – one, moreover, who knows nothing about Chinese culture. Father and daughter have a few fences of their own to mend, but it’s only when the two men are thrown together on a motorbike delivering the invitations to faraway places that each starts to learn a little mutual respect. It’s a familiar set-up for an odd-couple road movie; the only problem is that Melbourne-based actor Ben Pfeiffer, 32, is awkward (and not particularly likeable) as the Brit, Benji. His accent is okay, but the script by Li Yongchang 李勇昌 [Ryon Lee] (Great Day) and Chen Yuying 陈钰莹 saddles Pfeiffer with dialogue that’s too literary and explanative; more disconcertingly, both the actor and Zhou seem unsure whether to make Benji a goofy innocent or a more abrasive character. The writers also don’t know what to do with the daughter after her opening scenes, and there’s not enough natural warmth between beauty queen-turned-actress You Fengyin 尤凤音, 27, and Pfeiffer to make their love convincing in the face of her father’s objections.
It’s left to Li to be the heart and soul of the movie, and Zhou makes him look as if he’s been acting all his life, whether in scenes that stress his fear of his own mortality (as old friends suddenly die) or in exchanges between Wu Zhiquan and Benji in which they achieve a tacit understanding despite not speaking the other’s language. As in his previous films, Zhou also draws engaging playing from the child cast, both in flashbacks to the older characters’ youth and in the present day.
With dialogue roaming across several languages and dialects (English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Malay, Tamil), the film has a realistic feel for the country’s multi-cultural makeup while remaining predominantly Chinese Malaysian in flavour, like Zhou’s previous movies. Despite that, it managed to tap into a broader national sensibility, becoming the country’s biggest-grossing film ever, dislodging Malay-language action movie KL Gangster (2011) from that perch. Filming took place in many locations, including Cameron Highlands, Klang Valley, Ipoh, Penang, Kedah, Malacca and Johor, plus Sabah in Borneo, most of which are unidentified.
CREDITS
Presented by Astro Shaw (MY). Produced by Woohoo Pictures (MY).
Script: Li Yongchang [Ryon Lee], Chen Yuying. Photography: Yang Dewei. Editing: Li Xinhui. Music direction: Xin Weili. Art direction: Sun Yongzhao. Styling: Huang Juqing, Shen Xuefen. Sound: Pan Keqiang, Du Duzhi. Action: William Ong. Visual effects: Huang Yisheng (Passion Republic).
Cast: Ben Pfeiffer (Benji Harris), Li Shiping (Wu Zhiquan/Ox), You Fengyin (Wu Meirong, Wu Zhiquan’s daughter), Xiao Feihong (Lian Baji/Tiger), Lin Yaoming (Uncle Lin Dan), Huo Yinglai (Chen Yajiu/Doggie), Kong Dequan (Wang Baode/Black Rooster), Lin Yuancheng (Zhu Zhongmin/Old Pig), Chen Hua (Uncle Zhang Dongjian), Zhang Zhensong (Lin Qifa/Fa), Yang Lingfeng (Zhou Fuxing/Rabbit Xing), Xu Ruiming (Xu Shuncai/Thin Skinned Monkey), Zhang Li (Liu Wenzheng/Sheep), Sherry Aljeffri (Fatimah Binti Ahmad), Huang Zixuan (Zhu Zixuan), Chen Yuanyang (Zhou Caihong/Fatty), Huang Cuifeng (Auntie Gao), Zhang Baoquan (young Ox), He Jinhan (young Doggie), Lin Weicheng (young Black Rooster), Wen Wenyi (young Sheep), Huang Haoyi (young Fatimah), Chen Jinyan (Uncle Zhang Dongjian’s wife), He Jinfeng (Zhu Zhongmin’s wife), Que Songhui (Zhu Zhongmin’s son), Yang Huiyu (young Bee), Gabriele Hipkiss (Benji’s mother), John Ellis (Benji’s father), Feng Zengluan (Chen, headmistress), Li Shaoying (Madame Li), Xie Duqin (wedding MC), Xu Peifen, Xu Meiyan (Cameron Highlands neighbours), Liang Baoli (old people’s home nurse), Syed Ridzuan Bin Syed Abdullah (Rashidi, police inspector), Lin Yarui (Wu Zhiquan’s wife), Lin Derong [Jack Lim] (motorcycle repairman), Huang Yifei (hotel receptionist), Xiao Huimin (hawker), Yan Jianghan (Lin Xiaoshun), Zhuo Huixun (taxi driver), Chen Zhikang (Lin Zhiying), Qiu Wenbo (bridegroom), Zeng Haoyu (Lianrong), Lin Li (Durian Head), Liu Xiaoping (policewoman Liu Xiaoping), Chen Weizhi (Liu Wenzheng’s neighbour), Lin Jiabing (Bee’s aunt), Pan Biling (Zhou Caihong’s wife), Wen Huiyin (bride).
Premiere: Taoyuan Film Festival (Programme of the Year), Taiwan, 12 Oct 2013.
Release: Malaysia, 30 Jan 2014.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 28 Apr 2014.)