Trouble Makers
兄弟，别闹！
China, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 90 mins.
Director: Gao Xiaopan 高晓攀.
Associate directors: Sun Jibin 孙集斌, Zeng Delun 曾得伦.
Rating: 5/10.
Directing debut by stand-up comedian Gao Xiaopan, about two petty criminals, is a real curate’s egg.
STORY
Beijing, the present day. After coming out of prison after a sentence for tyre stealing, Zheng Hao (Gao Xiaopan) is re-arrested minutes later for causing a street disturbance and is ordered to pay RMB50,000 compensation. Matters aren’t helped when he discovers his “twin brother” Zheng Zhong (You Xianchao) spent all of their RMB30,000 savings while he was in prison. Meanwhile, Xie (Tian Yu), programme director at online BBTV, has come up with the idea of a reality show centred on reformed villains called Bad Guys, Please Be Good 浪子请回头. To win the RMB500,000 prize money, Zheng Hao and Zheng Zhong apply, pass the audition, and are assigned the beautiful but inexperienced Xia Tianfan (Yu Shasha), on her first assignment as a producer. Both of them fall for her. In the first programme, Zheng Hao apologises to those he harmed in the past, starting with primary schoolmate He Chunfeng (Wan Guopeng), who tells Zheng Hao to make his father (Wang Jinsong) happy by finding him a wife. In the second programme, Zheng Hao pays back any debts he incurred, starting with high schoolmate Yang Lu (Yi Yunhe) from whom he borrowed RMB10 17 years ago and whom he also let some bullies beat up. Yang Lu, who’s now a loan shark, suggests Zheng Hao collects a RMB3 million debt on his behalf – which turns out to be more easily said than done. Zheng Hao and Xia Tianfan eventually spend an evening together and start to like each other. However, BBTV’s Xie then threatens to cancel the show, due to the lack of reform the characters have shown, and Xia Tianfan is re-assigned, to old people’s show Sunset Glow 美夕阳红. At the same time, an old gangster pal, Li He aka Lao San (Li Canchen), comes out of prison and contacts Zheng Hao about doing a gold robbery together.
REVIEW
In the continuing tradition of Chinese performers turning director, chalk Trouble Makers 兄弟，别闹！ up as a real curate’s egg. Inspired by (but with a different plot from) a 2016 play by stand-up comedian Gao Xiaopan 高晓攀 – which is turn was inspired by a TV programme from the previous year – the film is intended as a showcase for Gao, 32, and his longtime stand-up partner You Xianchao 优宪超 but is thwarted by the demands that any feature film makes on such performers. Centred on the idea of two petty-criminal “twin brothers” trying to go straight, the movie has a fine first half but then starts losing traction; though it recovers slightly in the finale and coda, nothing in the second half equals that in the first. It flopped on release, with a tiny RMB12 million.
Though Gao’s comic style has plenty of charm, with traces of well-known comedian Shen Teng 沈腾, his roots are in the long-established xiāngshēng 相声 (“crosstalk”) discipline, a rapid-fire, pun-heavy performance format that works on the stage and TV but doesn’t translate easily to film, as others like Yue Yunpeng 岳云鹏 have found. But the main problem with Trouble Makers is the script, lead written by co-associate director Sun Jibin 孙集斌 (improv TV show Happy Theater 开心俱乐部, 2017), which is fine when centred on sketch-like situations but can’t cope when a plot hoves into view in the second half. Also, the underlying theme of “brotherhood”, present in the film’s various predecessors and the Chinese title (literally, “Brothers, Give It a Rest!”), and the basis of the stand-up humour between Gao and You, also takes a back seat later on.
When things are going well, the film shows a nice eye (and timing) for sight gags, such as the duo lusting after their pretty producer, with You (as the fattie idiot) often stealing the limelight from Gao (as his supposedly more intelligent “brother”). TV actress-presenter Yu Shasha 于莎莎 (black caper comedy Kill Me Please 这就是命, 2017) is fine in the only main female role but the script basically drops her around the halfway mark, seemingly at a loss what to do with her role. Taking her place is Hong Kong veteran Li Canchen 李灿琛 [Sam Lee], as an ex-convict pal who lures the pair into a gold robbery; but thereon the movie morphs into something else, with loads of backstory and unfunny brotherly strife loaded in. Things recover at the end but the film only just manages to drag itself across the 90-minute line.
Widescreen photography by South Korean d.p. Yi Jun-gyu 이준규 | 李埈圭, who shot prestige productions like The Classic 클래식 (2003) and Arahan 아라한 장풍 대작전 (2004) back in the day, serves up a bright, clean look, and editing by Hong Kong’s Xu Hongyu 许宏宇 [Derek Hui] is tight and on the beat with sight gags. Though set in Beijing, the film was shot in Gao’s hometown Baoding, in Hebei province.
CREDITS
Presented by Wanda Media (CN), Shenzhen Wuxianjie Pictures (CN), Beijing Xiaopan Culture Media (CN).
Script: Sun Jibin, Zheng Quan, Bu Yu, Liu Honglu. Photography: Yi Jun-gyu. Editing: Xu Hongyu [Derek Hui], Liu Yi. Music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang]. Art direction: Li Biao. Styling: Han Songqing. Sound: Liang Kai, Jiang Jianqiang. Action: Yi Hong-pyo. Executive direction: Alex Phua.
Cast: Gao Xiaopan (Zheng Hao), You Xianchao (Zheng Zhong), Yu Shasha (Xia Tianfan), Li Canchen [Sam Lee] (Li He/Lao San/Sam), He Ziming (policeman), Bu Yu (black-faced policeman), Cui Can (young Zheng Hao), Wang Yuexu (young Zheng Zhong), Tian Yu (Xie, BBTV programme director), Chen Xi (Xiaopang/Vivian), Peng Jingci (Daobalian/Scarface), Li Qingtian (Da Yong), Lv Pengyu (young He Chunfeng), Wang Jinsong (He Chunfeng’s father), Wan Guopeng (He Chunfeng), Yi Yunhe (Yang Lu), Liu Xunzimo (Lv Sihai), Zhang Benyu (Zhao Jiuzhou), Wei Zhi (MC), Qian Bo (Zheng Hao’s father), Wang Yuelun (doctor), Gong Zhe (Zheng Hao’s mother).
Release: China, 10 Nov 2017.