I Am Your Mom

我是你妈

China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 104 mins.

Director: Zhang Xiao 张骁.

Rating: 6/10.

Real-life mum and daughter Yan Ni and Zou Yuanqing shine, despite the film’s midway change of tone.

STORY

Guihai city, China, the present day. Qin Meili (Yan Ni) lives with her 17-year-old daughter Zhao Xiaoyi (Zou Yuanqing) in the flat her painter husband Zhao Zhiyong left her when he walked out 10 years ago. Qin Meili works as a waitress in a Korean restaurant, whose manager (Na Wei) still owes her back pay, while the tomboyish and rebellious Zhao Xiaoyi is a senior high-school student. Thinking she should get married again, Qin Meili’s parents (Zeng Jiang, Liao Xueqiu) are trying to match her off with Lin Youde (Wu Ruofu), deputy director of the Public Security Bureau. Also interested in her, however, are Zhou Zhenghao (Wu Dawei), a teacher at Zhao Xiaoyi’s school, and Hui (Wu Yue), a yoga instructor whose classes she goes to. Meanwhile, Liu Chang, Zhao Xiaoyi’s best school friend, tries to get her to change her tomboy image, first by having her ears pierced. One day Zhao Xiaoyi suddenly falls head over heels for a fellow student, Li Xing (Cao Enqi), whom she sees skateboarding; but when Liu Chang gets her to wear a dress and attract his attention later on, their plan embarrassingly fails. To distract Zhao Xiaoyi from her schoolgirl crush, Qin Meili encourages her interest in dance and trains with her for a while. As Zhao Xiaoyi turns 18, she auditions for – and unexpectedly gets – the only place available at the performing-arts college in the provincial capital, despite heavy competition. Liu Xing, however, fails the university entrance exam due to a family tragedy and disappears from her life. Zhao Xiaoyi moves to the provincial capital, where her dormitory roommates are Li Qiao and Bai Ying. Their professor is the tough but handsome Song Chongguang (Geng Le), who, to the annoyance of Li Qiao, favours Zhao Xiaoyi. Back home, Qin Meili feels lonely without her daughter and, after a row with her restaurant boss, moves to the provincial capital to be near Zhao Xiaoyi. At first she gets just a cleaner’s job, but then an opportunity to take over a small restaurant presents itself.

REVIEW

Mainland actress Yan Ni 闫妮 and her real-life daughter Zou Yuanqing 邹元清 make marvellous chemistry together in comedy-drama I Am Your Mom 我是你妈, despite a script that’s basically two different films pasted together. After a first half that’s full of glancing humour, nuanced dialogue and entertaining characters, the tone gradually becomes more serious in the second half as the daughter leaves home for college and a rapid series of manufactured crises climax in a weepie finale. Released on China’s Mother’s Day, the film has only managed a lame RMB36 million, despite its several positive qualities.

However, for writer-director Zhang Xiao 张骁, a Beijing Film Academy graduate, it’s still the biggest success so far in a career that saw him start as a TV music producer/composer and only move into directing in the mid-2000s. After co-directing with veteran Li Jun 李俊 the 1940s military drama Chang Longji 常隆基 (2005), Zhang went solo with My Internship Life 我的实习生活 (2007), a routinely scripted drama, flecked with film-schooly touches, about a college graduate’s struggle to be accepted on her own terms within Beijing’s predatory TV industry (see poster, left). His next feature, the black comedy Tracing Kong Ling Xue 跟踪孔令学 (2011), also made no box-office impression (RMB2.7 million), despite fine performances from a cast including comedian Fan Wei 范伟 and a good script by Bai Tiejun 白铁军, co-writer of Sorry Baby 没完没了 (1999) and a writer for comedian/director Zhao Benshan 赵本山. His social/political satire 姐姐快跑 (literally, “Big Sister, Run Fast”), shot in 2015 with actress Zhou Weitong 周韦彤 and veteran comedian Ying Da 英达, remains unreleased, so Mom represents Zhang’s first commercial breakthrough as a director.

The film’s split personality is doubly unfortunate as the first half contains enough material to go the distance as a full-length feature. Set in the fictional city of Guihai, it centres on a still perky and attractive divorcee of 10 years (Yan) and her rebellious, tomboyish 17-year-old daughter (Zou). Though it traverses familiar material – teenage rebelliousness, high-school life, the mother courted by several admirers – the screenplay by Zhang, Fan Jing 樊菁 and Qiu Yan 邱岩, from Fan’s short story 我的妈妈生于1966 (“My Mum Was Born in 1966”), brings a fresh spin to all the inter-generational stuff thanks to the sly dialogue and both actress’ performances.

The credentials of Yan, 47, one of the Mainland’s finest comic actresses (Cow 斗牛, 2009; My Own Swordsman 武林外传, 2011; Some Like It Hot 情圣, 2016; Wished 反转人生, 2017), speak for themselves: whether staggering around drunk at the parents’ home or clumsily trying to bond with her daughter, she’s compulsively watchable, investing every line with underplayed irony. However, she gets a run for her money from the big-eyed, expressive Zou, 20, who, apart from a tiny role in the 2009 TV drama Unrivalled Jack-Of-All-Trades 无敌三脚猫 in which her mother also appeared, has only one prior acting credit, as the lead’s notable female nemesis in the above-average high-school movie All about Secrets 秘果 (2017). (During the intervening years Zou was sent to the US for high-schooling.) Again, though her character is straight out of the youth-film handbook, she gives it real depth and an abrasive charm, and is also compulsively watchable.

As the second half moves to the daughter’s college life in the provincial capital, the visual style – previously full of pop-up graphics, manga-style animation and thought bubbles, mirroring the high-school genre – switches to a conventional style that replicates her new maturity and independence. The dramatic balance also shifts to the mother suddenly needing her daughter rather than the other way round, with the former taking a job nearby to stay close to her offspring. Initially this natural development is fine, but in its last half-hour the film loses its subtlety and irony as plot developments pile on top of one another in quick succession (the mother caught in a financial scan, the daughter smeared by a jealous roommate), plus a too easy resolution of the mother’s all-consuming hatred for her ex-husband. The film recovers its charm in a tacked-on montage of the two actresses recording the catchy theme song, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory.

Other performances are strong, from TV’s Wu Ruofu 吴若甫, smiley Taiwan American Wu Dawei 吴大维 [David Wu] and Mainland actor-martial artist Wu Yue 吴樾 as the mother’s various suitors – all underplayed – to TV actress Zhang Heng 张恒 as the mother’s drinking pal. Technical credits are smooth, including the good-looking but unshowy photography by Hong Kong’s Gao Zhenggan 高正淦 (A Chinese Odyssey: Part Three 大话西游3, 2016; Soccer Killer 仙球大战, 2017).

The Chinese title has the same meaning as the (American) English one. The production title was the much better 亲爱的冤家 (“Dear Enemy”).

CREDITS

Presented by iQiYi (Beijing) Pictures (CN). Produced by iQiYi (Beijing) Pictures (CN).

Script: Zhang Xiao, Fan Jing, Qiu Yan. Short story: Fan Jing. Photography: Gao Zhenggan. Editing: Li Xusheng. Music: Shu Nan. End-title song music: Zhou Jielun [Jay Chou]. Lyrics: Zhou Jielun [Jay Chou]. Art direction: Gong Kaijun. Sound: Tu Hao.

Cast: Yan Ni (Qin Meili), Zou Yuanqing (Zhao Xiaoyi), Wu Ruofu (Lin Youde, policeman), Wu Dawei (Zhou Zhenghao, high-school teacher), Geng Le (Song Chongguang, college teacher), Zhang Heng (Liu Lingli), Zeng Jiang [Kenneth Tsang] (Qin Zhenhua, Qin Meili’s father), Liao Xueqiu (Qin Meili’s mother), Wu Yue (Hui, yoga instructor), Na Wei (Sun, restaurant manager), Cao Enqi (Liu Xing), Li Zhengyang (Zhanzhan).

Release: China, 11 May 2018.