Chasing Hemingway
遭遇海明威
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 124 mins.
Director: Xu Cheng 徐程.
Rating: 2/10.
Pretty but lifeless romance, in a touristy location, has a ridiculous TVD-style script and uninvolving leads.
STORY
Dali town, Yunnan province, southern China, the present day. After serving a six-year jail term for faulty safety measures at his food company, middle-aged chairman Xia Qingyuan (Gao Shuguang) is met by his staff when he’s released but tells them he just wants to go where the wind takes him. He takes the first flight out, which lands him in Dali, where he keeps bumping into Lu Yilian (Han Bo-reum), a young Chinese American writer who is looking to hook a handsome man. Noting he smokes Arturo Fuente cigars and drinks mojitos, she thinks Gao Shuyuan encapsulates the spirit of her idol, the late US writer Ernest Hemingway, and sets out to hook him. Meanwhile, she’s approached by Xia Qingyuan’s general manager, Fang Liang (Guo Peng) – who’s secretly followed his boss to Dali, along with new company lawyer Wu Jun (Feng Jing) – to report to him on the chairman’s activities, but she refuses. She and Xia Qingyuan spend time together, taking in Dali’s attractions and cultural life, but he often looks as if he’s considering suicide. Lu Yilian commissions a painter friend, Xiaodongbei (Liu Miongyang), who lives in Dali, to do a portrait of Xia Qingyuan. Finally, the members of his company’s board – including his ex-wife (Rong Rong) and spoilt son (Yang Shengqi) – arrive to try to force him to return to work or give up his chairmanship, as the company needs decisive management to survive.
REVIEW
A company chairman looking for peace and a beautiful young writer looking for love meet cute in scenic Yunnan province and generate zero sparks in Chasing Hemingway 遭遇海明威, a spectacular belly-flop by Mainland character actor Xu Cheng 徐程 in his big-screen debut as a writer-director. Apparently intended to convey the Hemingway philosophy of living life to the full, by the moment, and with no regrets, it ends up as a lethargic love story set in a touristy location that’s entirely constructed out of TV drama cliches and acted with no conviction at all. The film vanished at the Mainland box office with a microscopic RMB223,000, and Xu, then 50, has seemingly returned to acting. He was last seen in a supporting role as a parent in So Long, My Son 地久天长 (2019).
Born in Harbin, northeast China, Xu studied acting at Shanghai Theatre Academy and subsequently joined Shanghai People’s Art Theatre for three years before moving to the US for 12 years (1992-2004), where he reportedly directed a TV movie. In 2004 he returned to China, working mostly in TV. Thanks to d.p. Liu Lihua 刘利华, Hemingway looks consistently attractive as it roams around upscale venues in the popular lakeside town of Dali, southern China, but little else registers. Playing a US-born Chinese who sings Shenandoah to prove her internationalism, South Korean TV actress Han Bo-reum 한보름 | 韩宝凛 (aka Kim Bo-reum 김보름 | 金宝凛) is annoyingly cute and perky, re-voiced okay, but clearly acting according to some TV drama manual. Then 28, and with a Chinese thriller under her belt (Death Trip 夺命旅行, 2015, dir. Deng Yancheng 邓衍成 [Billy Tang]), she generates no chemistry with TV actor Gao Shuguang 高曙光, 51, who’s not called upon to do much more than look cool and tight-lipped.
At two hours, the pacing is leisurely, with almost an hour passing before anything really happens. A jaw-droppingly ridiculous bookend scene has novelists Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Shanghai novelist Zhang Ailing 张爱玲 [Eileen Chang] meeting in a bar and watching the film on an iPad. Without it, the film might just have squeezed 3/10 as a tourism brochure.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Lanyue Eastern Cultural Development (CN), Fengshan Film (CN), Shanghai Qianrong Cultural Communication (CN). Produced by Beijing Lanyue Eastern Cultural Development (CN).
Script: Xu Cheng. Script planning: Wang Yan, Huang Yu, Zhang Ning. Photography: Liu Lihua. Editing: Yang Shuyong, Jin Dou. Music: Su Junjie. Art direction: Huang Jin. Costume design: Zang Lan, Liu Borui. Styling: Jiang Hong. Sound: Shi Xiang. Visual effects: Lin Jiangbin. Executive direction: Bian Siqiao.
Cast: Han Bo-reum (Lu Yilian/Elaine), Gao Shuguang (Xia Qingyuan), He Zhengjun (Lu Yilian’s father), Rong Rong (Wang Liping, Xia Qingyuan’s ex-wife), Xue Xiaofeng (bar owner), Zhu Lin (cellist), Guo Peng (Fang Liang), Liu Mingyang (Xiaodongbei, painter), Feng Jing (Wu Jun), Eric Joseph (Ernest Hemingway), Andrew Lane Cawthon (Scott Fitzgerald), Sun Lufei (Zhang Ailing/Eileen Chang), Han Lan (police-station officer), Yang Shengqi (Xia Qingyuan’s son), Bi Yuanjin (board member), He Xun (fashion designer).
Release: China, 20 Nov 2015.