Ode to the Spring
你是我的春天
China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 121 mins.
Directors: Zhou Nan 周楠 (I), Zhang Chi 张弛 (II), Tian Yusheng 田羽生 (III), Dong Yue 董越 (IV), Rao Xiaozhi 饶晓志 (V).
Rating: 4/10.
Third major Wuhan-set Covid drama, an uneven collection of tales put together by five production units.
STORY
Wuhan city, Hubei province, central China, 23 Jan 2020. I: Amid the chaos of the Covid-19 outbreak, Shang Xiaoyu (Zhou Dongyu) accompanies her mother, Li Guizhi, to a hospital for treatment. Meanwhile, Shang Xiaoyu’s boyfriend, Li Nanfeng (Yin Fang), who’s just arrived by train from Shanghai, tries to find her in the virus-hit city. (One week ago Li Nanfeng had emailed Shang Xiaoyu, enquiring whether she was okay in Wuhan. They had broken up two months previously, but Li Nanfeng still loved her, and intended to propose.) Li Nanfeng finds the hospital Shang Xiaoyu is in but over the phone she asks him to find her mother, who was taken to a different hospital. At 22:00 the city is locked down and all public transport halted. Li Nanfeng learns the mother was taken to Wuchang district; he cycles there and gives her a phone so Shang Xiaoyu can talk to her. Shang Xiaoyu tells Li Nanfeng not to stay in Wuhan for his on safety, but the city s locked down anyway. Her mother, who never liked Li Nanfeng, relents and lets him stay at her flat. But then tragedy strikes. II: Migrant workers Liu Erhong (Song Xiaobao) and his nephew are driving a consignment of masks to Wuhan to sell to Zhong (Zheng Luoqian), a doctor. They find the streets in the city deserted. En route they help transport an old woman (Wu Yanshu) to a hospital, where they find no beds are available. Meanwhile, the woman’s grand-daughter (Fan Yujie) is taken into quarantine. III: Community secretary Wang (Wang Jingchun), who is in charge of food distribution, intervenes in a dispute in a block of flats that involves the headstrong Zhao Xiaomai (Zhao Jinmai), daugher of a doctor. Later, Wang tries to solve more complaints from neighbours about Zhao Xiaomai’s piano-playing. But then Wang starts coughing one day at work, and he and his assistants, including Xiaoxue (Zeng Luoxue) and Xiaoyao (Yao Yize), have to quarantine. IV: Hospital doctor Gong Chen (Huang Chao) is under huge pressure at work, and he and his wife, senior nurse Yang Shan (Yang Si), are sleeping in their car between shifts while their son is staying with his grandparents. One nurse, Zhang Jing (Fu Yushu), breaks down when she realises she’s been infected. Despite Gong Chen’s efforts to save him, a doctor colleague, Ji Yongliang, dies in his care. V: Leshan city, Sichuan province. The wife (Song Jia) of a local tour guide (Huang Xiaoming) joins a group of health workers going to Wuhan, so her husband is left with looking after their troublesome young son, Li Yile (Zhang Hangcheng), alone.
REVIEW
Another “inspirational” Covid drama set in Wuhan – following Chinese Doctors 中国医生 (2021) and Embrace Again 穿过寒冬拥抱你 (2021) – Ode to the Spring 你是我的春天 has several similarities with the latter film, including an uneven dramatic tone as it moves from one story to another. The film is more of interest for having five separate directors and production teams whose styles blend easily with no significant differences. The problem is that, after Embrace, it has very little new to say about the whole situation and, judging by its poor box-office reception, fatigue with the subject seems to have set in with Mainland audiences. Compared with Doctors’ meaty RMB1.3 billion in summer 2021 and Embrace’s hunky RMB937 million during the 2021/22 New Year period, Ode racked up only a tiny RMB31 million last month.
Where Embrace had four stories, separately titled, Ode has five, with no titles, plus a coda that resolves the opening story. Apart from the central section, there’s less overlap between the tales than in Embrace; the final one isn’t even set in Wuhan, but in Leshan, a thousand kilometres to the west in the neighbouring province of Sichuan. Though that episode contains two name stars (Huang Xiaoming 黄晓明, Song Jia 宋佳) and is much lighter in tone than the rest of the film, it could easily be cut – and thereby reduce the film’s two-hour running time by a welcome 28 minutes. Aside from structure, Ode also shares with Embrace the names of actors Huang Bo 黄渤 and Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨: the lead star of Embrace, Huang doesn’t appear in Ode but was creative producer 监制 on the whole thing, while Zhou, who had a cameo in Embrace as a nurse, is the main attraction of the first (and best) tale.
That tale is a fanciful mixture of drama and cuteness that only an actress like the elfine Zhou could bring off. Opening (like Embrace) during the chaos of 23 Jan 2020, as the city prepares to go into a draconian two-month lockdown, Zhou’s character and her mother are put in separate hospitals just as her boyfriend arrives on the last train from Shanghai to help them. First he has to find them amid all the social upheaval, and the extra twists are that the pair actually split up a while ago and her mother loathes him. In his third theatrical feature, after the iffy Valentine’s Day rom-com Somebody to Love 我们约会吧 (2011) and much smoother, Finland-set piece of fluff I Remember 明天你是否依然爱我 (2020), writer-director Zhou Nan 周楠, 39, constructs a neat, 24-minute short story that has all the emotions, plus a vivid portrait of the locked-down city, that doesn’t leave much room for the other directors to emulate.
The shortest and slimmest story is the second, centred on two migrant workers delivering masks to the city. An almost throwaway character study directed by Zhang Chi 张弛 (The Shaft 地下的天空, 2008; Taste of Happiness 幸福的滋味, 2020), the 11-minute segment is over before it’s hardly begun. The next two stories, centred on a community secretary organising food distribution and an overworked hospital doctor and his nurse wife who sleep in their car, are blended together, with the tale of the secretary providing some contrast to the frontline drama of the hospital doctor as colleagues die and everyone works round the clock. The former material is handled by experienced director Tian Yusheng 田羽生 (Ex-Files 前任 trilogy, 2014-17) and the latter (darker) stuff by Dong Yue 董越 (moody whodunit The Looming Storm 暴雪将至, 2017) but they cross-cut okay into a 47-minute central section, with the often high drama of the latter mellowing the do-gooder tendencies of the former. Just when it seems that the whole film has nothing more to add, the final episode pops up – a light comedy, set in Leshan, with a tour guide (Huang, valiant) stranded at home with his terminally annoying young son when his wife (Song) joins a medical team going to help in Wuhan. Director is noted theatre and film writer-director Rao Xiaozhi (black comedies The Insanity 你好，疯子！, 2016, and A Cool Fish 无名之辈, 2018), here seemingly working on autopilot.
Technical credits are pro throughout. The film’s Chinese title means “You Are My Spring(time)”.
CREDITS
Presented by China Film Press (CN), Wanda Pictures (CN), Wuhan Cultural Investment Development Group (CN), Changchun Film Studio (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Emei Film Group (CN). Produced by Chinese Filmmakers Association (CN) (I-V), Beijing Dashidu Culture Media (I), Shenzhen Jixiang Culture Media (II), The New Saint Film (Tianjin) (III), Haining Sunshine Films (IV), Rao Film Studio (Shanghai) (V).
Script: Zhou Nan (I); Zhang Chi, Shang Chengjun, Liu Bohan (II); The New Saint Film (Tianjin), Shi Chenyun (III); Zhu Bo, Dong Yue (IV); Rao Xiaozhi, Zhang Kang, Hui Xiaoli, Lin Li. Script supervision: Yuan Yuan. Photography: Zhao Xuhui (I); Xie Tianxiang (II); Che Liangyi [Randy Che] (III); Deng Xu (IV); Cao Yong (V); Ru Jixiao (Beijing unit). Editing: Xu Hongyu [Derek Hui] (I-III); Kuang Zhiliang (IV); Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai] (V). Editing supervision: Zhou Yuan, Lin Zhuangyu (Shanghai Blink Pictures). Music: Li Xiaodong, Xie Xin. Art direction: Chen Zhihao (I); Wang Bai (II); Zheng Chen (III); Dong Yue, Chen Chen (IV); Shu Xingjia (V). Styling: Tan Xiaoshi (I); Gao Jianqiong (II); Li Qinmo (III); Zhang Jiang (V). Sound: He Wei (I-V); Gao Hailun (I); Mu Lingfei (II); Hu Liang, Liu Jia (III); Zhang Jing (IV). Visual effects: Jiao Fuqiang.
Cast: I: Zhou Dongyu (Shang Xiaoyu), Yin Fang (Li Nanfeng), Song Jia (Wang Ya’er, nurse); II: Pan Binglong (Wang Dapeng), Song Xiaobao (Liu Erhong), Liu Tianchi (Wang Dapeng’s wife), Wu Yanshu (granny taken to hospital), Li Naiwen (manager of mask factory), Zheng Luoqian (Zhong, doctor), Fan Yujie (young girl), Fan Tiantian (pharmacy lady), Xia Zitong (secretary); III: Wang Jingchun (Wang, community secretary), Zhao Jinmai (Zhao Xiaomai), Zeng Mengxue (Xiaoxue), Yao Yize (Xiaoyao); IV: Huang Chao (Gong Chen), Yang Si (Yang Shan, Gong Chen’s wife), Fan Xuepeng (Fan Xuepeng), Ye Kai (Ye Kai), Fu Yushu (Zhang Jing, nurse); V: Huang Xiaoming (Li Jing, Li Yile’s father), Song Jia (Wang Ya’er, Li Yile’s mother), Zhao Liang (Xiaopang’s father), Zhang Hangcheng (Li Yile), Liao Hairui (Xiaopang).
Release: China, 1 Jul 2022.