Viva la vida

我们一起摇太阳

China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 129 mins.

Director: Han Yan 韩延.

Rating: 6/10.

Offbeat, odd-couple rom-com between two people with life-threatening diseases has terrific playing by its young leads but is let down by a conventional final act.

STORY

Changsha city, Hunan province, south central China, Feb 2023. Over two years ago Ling Min (Li Gengxi), a qualified tour guide, discovered she had uraemia due to kidney failure; since then, just to stay alive, she’s been strictly following a specialised diet and going for dialysis three times a week, while waiting for a kidney transplant. Now almost 25, in desperation she posts a video online explaining her condition and offering to marry anyone who can donate a kidney. Some time later she has second thoughts and deletes the video; but she then gets a call from a young man, Lv Tu (Peng Chang), who’s seen the video and sets up a meeting in a restaurant. He’s a scruffy, voluble guy whom she dismisses as a wacko. But after getting rid of him he keeps turning up everywhere, to her exasperation, and won’t take no for an answer. Finally he reveals that he has an incurable brain tumour and not long to live: if she looks after his mother following his death, he’ll also donate his other kidney to her post mortem. He has researched her case and says they are medically compatible. But then they learn from the police that what they are planning to do is actually illegal. Lv Tu disappears for a while. However, at the wedding of her best friend, Jiahui (Song Yiren), where Ling Min is a bridesmaid, Lv Tu turns out to be the wedding videographer. After getting into a fight there, Lv Tu accidentally hurts Ling Min’s fragile left arm that is used for dialysis, necessitating a small operation and a short spell in hospital for her. He helps her move flats and, after she’s discharged, moves in with her – despite her protests – to help her recovery. As hey live together, she gradually begins to warm to him. One day he introduces her to his mother, Tao Yi (Xu Fan), a secret alcoholic who’s as wacky as he is. Ling Min and Lv Tu finally declare their love for each other. And then, one rainy night when the city is jammed with cars, Ling Min hears she may have a donor if she can get to the hospital in time.

REVIEW

Shandong-born writer-director Han Yan 韩延, 40, whose most notable films (First Time 第一次, 2012; Go Away Mr. Tumor! 滚蛋吧！肿瘤君, 2015; A Little Red Flower 送你一朵小红花, 2020) have all been disease-of-the-week rom-com/dramas, ups the stakes in his latest outing, Viva la vida 我们一起摇太阳, in which both leads have incurable diseases. For its first 90 minutes, this looks like being one of Han’s best movies, thanks to great chemistry between its two young leads, lively playing, and an offbeat comic tone. However, like Red Flower and his last film, oldies rom-com Love Never Ends 我爱你！ (2023), it’s badly let down by a final act that’s a conventional life-or-death melodrama, thinly scripted and very strung out. After the huge success of Red Flower (RMB1.43 billion) and very solid takings for Love (RMB428 million), Viva only managed a so-so RMB276 million. The film was initially released on 10 Feb but was pulled after six days, having grossed only RMB12.5 million due to heavy competition from CNY blockbusters like YOLO 热辣滚烫 and Pegasus 2 飞驰人生2. It was re-released on 30 Mar.

Most of Han’s films since First Time have been adapted from other East Asian movies or manga, often with some inventive changes. Written by Han, Li Liangwen 李亮文 (Hachiko 我们一起摇太阳, 2023; Love Never Ends), Wang Xiao’ai 王小艾 (an associate producer on Love) and Yang Fuzhi 杨富芝, Viva is more original, though a title at the start informs the viewer that it’s “partially sourced from the documentary report The Most Pragmatic Marriage Transaction, The Most Emotional Eternal Agreement” 部分取材自纪实报道《最功利的婚姻交易，最动情的永恒约定》. All that aside, it’s another Han movie whose cast is its great strength – and in this case its two leads, Peng Yuchang 彭昱畅 and Li Gengxi 李庚希, who carry the whole movie on their young shoulders.

Most of the heavy lifting, especially in the early stages, is by the female lead, from whose perspective the story unfolds. Largely a TV actress, Hangzhou-born Li, 24, made an impressive big-screen debut as the daughter in The Oldtown Girls 兔子暴力 (2020) and here, as a young uraemia victim who’s desperately waiting for a kidney donor, she holds the screen with her no-nonsense attitude that conceals a deep pessimism at having her life ruined before she’s hardly started it. With an arm scarred by regular hospital dialysis, and a life ruled by a strict diet, she finally posts a video online saying she’ll marry any man who can donate a kidney. Just when she gets cold feet and deletes the video, she’s contacted by a young guy who annoys her from the very start – and hereon, from the 20-minute mark, the film suddenly morphs into an offbeat, odd-couple rom-com.

The boyish-looking but versatile Peng, 29, is well versed in playing cheeky-chappie or nerdy types (Our Shining Days 闪光少女, 2017; Go Brother 快把我哥带走, 2018) and here he has a ball as Lv Tu, a scruffy, voluble wacko who rubs up the highly-organised Ling Min in every way, even calling her Lin Min the whole time. The film springs alive as soon as Peng’s character appears, and Li gives as good as she gets, showing a nice line in throwing tempers, including an almost feral growl. It’s clear from the start that they’ll eventually get on, but the journey to that point is always entertaining and expressed in unstagey dialogue. It’s a measure of Li and Peng’s on-screen chemistry that when experienced older actors pop up in cameos – comedian Wang Xun 王迅 as an oily estate agent, actress Xu Fan 徐帆 as Lv Tu’s equally wacky mother – they don’t cast the young leads into the shade.

Viva’s other nice surprise is that, despite the fact that both leads have life-threatening diseases, their relationship isn’t defined by tragedy or a fear of death. The film’s titles – the Chinese one meaning “We’ll Rock the Sun Together”, the Spanish one meaning “Long Live Life” – both underline this, and the film maintains its sense of oddball humour right through the hour-long central section. More’s the pity, then, that at the 90-minute mark the mood suddenly changes back to drama, as the final (over-long) half-hour is played out as a standard melodrama, with music (previously quirky) to match. The point is that Ling Min now comes to Lv Tu’s rescue psychologically, just as he did for her earlier on, with each lifting the other’s spirits at a crucial moment. Structurally, this kind of makes sense – but it wrecks what’s been a great odd-couple rom-com to that point, and turns a potentially 8/10 movie into a 6/10. Unlike in Mr. Tumor, where the tone gradually changed to a touching, funny-sad drama, here the abrupt switch leaves the viewer feeling suddenly shut out.

Though it’s only made clear 70 minutes in that the film is set in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, the city – as in the recent Tale of the Night 长沙夜生活 (2023) – makes an atmospheric setting without being touristy. As in Love Never Ends, the mobile photography by Da Jiang 大江 [real name: Zhang Jiang 张江] has a naturally-lit, darkish look, complemented by the restless (but not anoying) editing by Li Yakun 李雅堃. Given that five medical advisors are credited, the fine detail of the leads’ conditions and treatment is presumably accurate, and provides a sense of authenticity to the whole film.

Han also directed a spin-off, written by Li and Wang, and starring the two leads, called Ling Min’s Lv Tu 凌敏的吕途, three short films released online (see left).

CREDITS

Presented by Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), China Film (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), Zhejiang Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Bejing Weimeng Internet Technology (CN), Fantawild Pictures Investment (CN), Guava Pictures (CN). Produced by Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Tianjin Lian Ray Pictures (CN).

Script: Han Yan, Li Fu [Li Liangwen], Wang Xiao’ai, Yang Fuzhi. Photography: Da Jiang [Zhang Jiang]. Editing: Li Yakun. Music: Ji Yuan, Wang Na’na. Art direction: Song Xiaojie. Costumes: Wang Mingming. Styling: Tang Ning. Sound: Wang Gang, Liu Xiaosha. Visual effects: Jiang Chao, Han Canzhou (Beijing Kernel Film & TV Culture). Executive direction: Liu Bin.

Cast: Peng Yuchang (Lv Tu), Li Gengxi (Ling Min), Xu Fan (Tao Yi, Lv Tu’s mother), Gao Yalin (Ling Min’s father), Liu Dan (Ling Min’s mother), Wu Xun (Zhao Dahu), Song Yiren (Jiahui), Liu Xun (Qian Liang), Li Chen (police officer), Yang Le (transplant surgeon), Li Jianyi (Jiang Huaishan, chief physician), Li Xiaochuan (patient’s father), Chen Xixu (Ling Min’s doctor), Liu Jieyi (patient).

Release: China, 10 Feb 2024.