My Blue Summer

暗恋   橘生淮南

China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 100 mins.

Director: Huang Bin 黄斌.

Associate director: Qiu Sheng 仇晟 (Xiamen unit).

Rating: 6/10.

Generic Gen-90 romance has an unforced, easy rhythm and a vivid lead performance by actress Zhang Xueying.

STORY

Dongshan county, Fujian province, southern China, Apr 2018. While on a business trip, hotshot lawyer Luo Zhi (Zhang Xueying) hears of the death of well-known Japanese anime director Takahata Isao, who made one of her favourite films, Only Yesterday おもひでぽろぽろ (1991). At an exhibition in his honour, she sees an old diary that she wrote in her teens (but lost at high school) devoted to her secret crush on a fellow pupil, Sheng Huainan. She asks if she can reclaim it, as it details a tale of unrequited love that began in her childhood. (In 1998, when Luo Zhi [Zhang Xiran] was eight, her father had died in an accident at the factory where he worked. Soon afterwards she had met Sheng Huainan [Lin Ziye], the young son of the factory’s owner whom her mother was still harassing for more compensation money, claiming the workers were not properly insured. Luo Zhi had been entranced by the handsome Sheng Huainan, who was friendly towards her, but when her mother had seen them together she had dragged Luo Zhi away. Ten years later, in 2008, Luo Zhi [Zhang Xueying] was in her second year at Zhenhua Senior High and was the top pupil. But she’d been knocked off the top spot by the sudden arrival of a brilliant transfer student from a wealthy family, Sheng Huainan [Xin Yunlai] – which had enraged Luo Zhi’s mother, who was still fighting for compensation from the Sheng family. When Luo Zhi had seen Sheng Huainan, she’d been immediately won over again by his humility and quietness, and started secretly following him around and imitating him. She had left a chalk message – a quote from Only Yesterday – on a wall and he, not knowing who left it, had written a reply. Meanwhile, the school beauty, Ye Zhanyan [Li Ximeng], had made an open play for Sheng Huainan. One day, Luo Zhi’s best friend, Zheng Wenrui [Lamuyangzi], had publicly confessed her love for Sheng Huainan, just to get it off her chest; she later urged Luo Zhi to let Sheng Huainan know her feelings. Then Ye Zhanyan had stolen Luo Zhi’s private diary, and soon afterwards she and Sheng Huainan had become a couple. As the countdown to the university entrance exam [gaokao] began, Luo Zhi had become the school’s top pupil, while Sheng Huainan slipped down to 24th. It was rumoured that he and Ye Zhanyan were going to travel abroad instead of sitting the exam. By 2012, Luo Zhi was at university in Xiamen, studying Law. Then one day she’d run into Sheng Huainan, who was acting in an arty “historical sci-fi” student film, Endless Love 末日之恋, directed by film club head Zhang Minrui [Wu Jiacheng]. She had pretended to only vaguely remember him, and he had told her that he’d broken up with Ye Zhanyan. She ended up co-starring with him in the student film, and a cautious friendship-cum-romance had started to grow between them. He had said he was still looking for whoever wrote the line from his favourite film, Only Yesterday.)

REVIEW

“Three years ago we watched My Best Summer 最好的我们 together. Three years later we meet again in My Blue Summer 暗恋   橘生淮南” proclaims the poster – and for once there’s a some truth in the advertising blurb. Both films are based on novels by Bayue Chang’an 八月长安 – literally “Chang’an [ancient Xi’an] in August”, pen name of Harbin-born writer Liu Wanhui 刘婉荟, 34 – and several of the same team are behind My Blue Summer as well, notably producer/co-writer Huang Bin 黄斌 who here takes the director’s chair as well as again co-writing, this time with four others including the author herself, generic youth scribe Fu Dandi 付丹迪 (Love Will Tear Us Apart 我要我们在一起, 2021; Lost and Found 以年为单位的恋爱, 2021) and indie film-maker Qiu Sheng 仇晟 (Suburban Birds 郊区的鸟, 2018), who also gets an “associate director” credit for the sections shot in Xiamen.

Though most of the technical crew are different, the result is a well-above-average student romance that, like My Best Summer, perpetually tweaks the high-school/retro formula in interesting ways and is aided by a vivid central performance by 25-year-old, Zhejiang-born actress Zhang Xueying 张雪迎, the revelation (as a teenager) of Einstein and Einstein 狗13 (2013). Though the film took nowhere near Best’s very warm RMB418 million, it still scraped a face-saving RMB135 million from Covid-hit Mainland cinemas in June. An over-long final act that could be tightened by 10 minutes is the only main flaw in an otherwise pleasant sit.

The original online novel was first published in book form in 2011 (see cover, left), with the two parts of its Chinese title actually reversed. Like Best, Blue also comes in the wake of a small-screen version – in fact, two: a 24-part online version from 2019 that was co-directed by the author herself along with Ding Pei 丁培, and starred actress Zhu Yanmanzi 朱颜曼滋 and actor Zhao Shunran 赵顺然 (both from Puppy Love 小情书, 2017), and a 38-part TV drama from 2021, directed by Li Muge 李木戈 and starring Hu Bingqing 胡冰卿 and Hu Yitian 胡一天. Both are known in English as Unrequited Love – the novel’s English title.

There’s nothing especially notable about the subject matter: a hotshot lawyer in her late 20s reminisces about her on-off unrequited love for a factory owner’s son that started when she was only eight. Written for a Gen-90 audience, it flashbacks to key moments in working-class Luo Zhi’s education (primary school, senior high, university) as rich kid Sheng Huainan pops in and out of her life. Only the first half is really about unrequited love as, once the pair meet again at university, they settle into a relationship which is more threatened by their families’ past than their own. In a typically cute device that isn’t allowed to define the movie,  the whole relationship is grounded in their mutual liking for a popular Japanese anime, Only Yesterday おもひでぽろぽろ (1991) – known in the Mainland and Hong Kong as 岁月童话 – that was directed by the late Takahata Isao 高畑勋 (1935-2018) and centred on a young woman’s memories of her childhood (see poster, left).

The most notable thing about the film is its unforced, easy rhythm that allows characters to gradually bloom – as much due to the editing by the experienced Zhu Lin 朱琳 as to the textured, summery look of the widescreen photography by UK d.p. Paul Morris (for the Xiamen scenes) and US d.p. Jeffrey Weil for the Beijing-shot material. (The whole film is actually set down south in Xiamen and Dongshan, in Fujian province.) Morris, whose background is in documentaries and advertising, previously did sterling work on The Curious Tale of Mr. Guo 不老奇事 (2021) and as 2nd unit d.p. on Hidden Man 邪不压正 (2018); Weil made his Asian feature debut with Taiwan indie My Mandala 原来你还在 (2013).

All of them, as well as Hong Kong veteran p.d. Xi Zhongwen 奚仲文 [Yee Chung-man] and Taiwan stylist Wei Xiangrong 魏湘容 – both also on Best – create a visually good-looking but unforced frame for the performances, especially by Zhang, who carries the movie with assurance and a complete lack of soppiness, and also by the usually bland Xin Yunlai 辛云来 (Cry Me a Sad River 悲伤逆流成河, 2018; Stay with Me 我是真的讨厌异地恋, 2022) who’s initially very low-key as the rich boy in her life but later develops some colour. More vivid colour is briefly contributed by Wu Jiacheng 伍嘉成 as a crazy amateur film director, Inner Mongolian comedienne Lamuyangzi 辣目洋子 (Fat Buddies 胖子行动队, 2018) as the girl’s lightly comic BFF, and newcomer Mao Xuewen 毛雪雯 as her love-crazed university roommate.

As in Best, there’s some wordplay involved in the main characters’ names – in this case linked by a well-known Chinese poem. Shanghai-born Huang, 41, previously co-directed the glossy but empty romantic drama You Are My Sunshine 何以笙箫默 (2015) but has mostly worked in production and marketing.

CREDITS

Presented by China Film (CN), WeFun (Shanghai) Entertainment & Media (CN), Beijing Hero Films (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), Lian Ray Pictures (CN), WeFun Xiaohua (Shanghai) Cultural Media (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN). Produced by China Film (CN), Shanghai Weimao Film & TV Cultural (CN).

Script: Huang Bin, Fu Dandi, Qiu Sheng, Li Sichen, Bayue Chang’an [Liu Wanhui]. Novel: Bayue Chang’an [Liu Wanhui]. Photography: Paul Morris (Xiamen unit), Jeffrey Weil (Beijing unit). Editing: Zhu Lin. Music supervision: Chen Jianqi, Luo Enni. Production design: Xi Zhongwen [Yee Chung-man]. Art direction: Li Yading. Styling: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Wen Bo. Executive direction: Wang Xiaohu (Xiamen unit); Ma Xiaohui, Wang Xiaohu (Beijing unit).

Cast: Zhang Xueying (Luo Zhi), Xin Yunlai (Sheng Huainan), Wu Jiacheng (Zhang Mingrui, film director), Liu Lin (Luo Zhi’s mother), Lamuyangzi (Zheng Wenrui, Luo Zhi’s BFF), He Landou (Geng Geng), Dai Lele (music teacher), Zhang Xiran (young Luo Zhi), Guo Jinglin (Zhao, company director), Jiang Hongbo (Sheng Huainan’s mother), Lin Ziye (young Sheng Huainan), Li Ximeng (Ye Zhanyan), Mao Xuewen (Jiang Baili, Luo Zhi’s university roommate), Miura Kenichi (Sakamoto, Japanese businessman), Yan Jingyao (Fu, Luo Zhi’s aunt).

Release: China, 2 Jun 2022.