Girls 2
闺蜜2
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.
Director: Huang Zhenzhen 黄真真 [Barbara Wong].
Rating: 2/10.
Slapdash, witless sequel, set in Saigon, comes across as amateurish on every level.
STORY
A city in China, the present day. Lin Xiwen (Chan Yihan) tells her BFF Kimmy Han (Xue Kaiqi) that her boyfriend Qiao Li has proposed to her. Delighted, Kimmy Han proposes a bachelorette trip to Saigon, Vietnam, where their other BFF, Xiaomei, has been directing a film for the past three months. Also invited along is Qiao Li’s younger sister Qiao Jingjing (Wang Shuilin) and, against Kimmy Han’s wishes, queen bitch Jialan (Zhang Junning), an old rival from schooldays. For their first evening in Saigon, Xiaomei, who’s busy shooting, has arranged for them to go to a lavish party thrown by her film’s principal investor, gangster Bảo Sơn (Trần Bảo Sơn). The girls drink way too much and Kimmy Han ends up separated from her friends and in Bảo Sơn’s bedroom, where he shows her a valuable ruby ring. While he pops out briefly, Kimmy Han manages to lose the ring. Next thing, she and Lin Xiwen and Jialan wake up buried in the sand on a beach, naked and handuffed to a strong box. Qiao Jingjing has disappeared. The three girls are befriended by an American-Korean beach-restaurant owner, Dragon (Mike Tyson), who gives them some clothes and helps them escape Bảo Sơn’s men, led by his female enforcer Trần Hà (Nguyễn Kim Hồng). En route, Jialan and Dragon fall for each other. The trio then receive a phone call from a female voice (Fan Tiantian), giving them the code to the strongbox and telling them that, if they spend everything in it within 24 hours, Qiao Jingjing will be returned to them. Inside are 100 gold ingots.
REVIEW
After the surprisingly effective romance-cum-ghost story The Secret 消失爱人 (2016), Hong Kong film-maker Huang Zhenzhen 黄真真 [Barbara Wong] sinks back again with Girls 2 闺蜜2, a follow-up to the 2014 hug/spat/bitch-fest centred on three BFFs that took a surprise RMB205 million at the Mainland box office. That film, poorly written as it was, and only partly rescued by individual performances, looks like a masterpiece compared with this slapdash sequel, which has the feel of a bad Wang Jing 王晶 [Wong Jing] movie from the 1980s. (There’s even a God of Gamblers 赌神 finale.) Mainland audiences stayed away this time, and the film quickly fizzled out with a meh RMB64 million.
The original centred on three girly friends played by a cross-section of Greater China talent – Taiwan’s Chen Yihan 陈意涵, Hong Kong’s Xue Kaiqi 薛凯琪 [Fiona Sit] and the Mainland’s Yang Zishan 杨子珊, all then reasonably hot names. Four years on, however, Yang doesn’t show up (her character is aways busy off-screen) and is effectively replaced by German-born, Taiwan-raised Zhang Junning 张钧宁 (the younger sister in Zoom Hunting 猎艳, 2010), as a bitchy fashionista whose running aggro with Xue’s character is the closest the script ever gets to character development. Hong Kong star Yu Wenle 余文乐 [Shawn Yue], who played Chen’s boyfriend, also doesn’t show up this time, even though his character is always talked about on screen and he’s about to marry Chen as soon as she and her pals get back from their bachelorette knees-up in Saigon. Instead, on the male side, Girls 2 fields former US boxer Mike Tyson, 51, as an American-Korean beach-restaurant owner (no, really) who helps les girls escape from some Vietnamese heavies and falls for one of them en route. It’s Tyson’s second appearance in a Chinese film and, as in Ip Man 3 叶问3 (2015), the least said about his performance (which is way more than just a cameo) the better.
The same, alas, could also be said for the rest of the leads who, stranded by an inept screenplay by Huang and three regulars and by dialogue that literally sounds as if it was made up on set, manage to mug, gawp, scream, hug and grimace their way through scenes that only seem to exist for them to change clothes again. Despite being supervised by Hong Kong veteran Qian Jiale 钱嘉乐 [Chin Ka-lok], action scenes are equally feeble, even on a comic level, and editing by Hong Kong’s seasoned Peng Zhengxi 彭正熙 [Curran Pang] is slack. Though the film is again funded by the Mainland’s Fujian Hengye Pictures – Huang’s fifth in a row – most key crew are from Hong Kong.
The saddest thing about Girls 2 is that it desperately wants to be a girls-just-wanna-have-fun caper comedy set in an exotic location but only succeeds in being amateurish on every level. Zhang, 35, who was so good in nostalgic drama Dinner for Six 六人晚餐 (2016), brings a smidgeon of class to her fashionista character but even she is unlikely to put this movie on her CV.
CREDITS
Presented by Fujian Hengye Pictures (CN), Real Pictures (CN). Produced by Fujian Hengye Pictures (CN), Real Pictures (CN).
Script: Huang Zhenzhen [Barbara Wong], Hou Yingheng, Zheng Shanyu, Du Guangting. Photography: Chen Chuqiang. Editing: Peng Zhengxi [Curran Pang]. Music: Lei Songde [Mark Lui]. Art direction: Wang Zhicheng. Costume design: Lin Xinyi. Sound: Zhang Jing, Ye Zhaoji. Action: Qian Jiale [Chin Ka-lok]. Car stunts: Wu Haitang. Visual effects: Yi Nuo, Li Zifei (Herbgarden).
Cast: Xue Kaiqi [Fiona Sit] (Kimmy Han), Chen Yihan (Lin Xiwen), Zhang Junning (Jialan), Mike Tyson (Dragon), Fan Tiantian (Maria, Bảo Sơn’s ex-wife), Trần Bảo Sơn (Bảo Sơn), Wang Shuilin (Qiao Jingjing), Nguyễn Kim Hồng (Trần Hà), Lin Keren (priest), Sun Xin (clothes-shop assistant), Lợi Trần (lead gigolo), Lê Khâm (Big Head, tattooist), Vũ Tuấn Đức (Vietnamese God of Gamblers), Petey “Majik” Nguyen (magician), Nina Komolova (magician’s assistant), Lu Wenxue (Lin Xiewen’s father), Zeng Cihui (Lin Xinwen’s mother).
Release: China, 2 Mar 2018.