Let’s Get Married
咱们结婚吧
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 126 mins.
Director: Liu Jiang 刘江.
Rating: 5/10.
Smoothly packaged, generic rom-com is undercut by constant cross-cutting between the four stories.
STORY
China, the present day. Ye Wenwen (Gao Yuanyuan), 32, manages a bridal boutique in Beijing but is herself unmarried, despite longing to find the perfect partner, especially now her ex-lover, Li Jianfeng (Ming Dao), is marrying a perfect bitch, Wang Keer (Mo Xiaoqi); without her realising, her best male friend, widowed dress designer Chen Zhenxuan (Jiang Wu), who has a young son, Yiyi, is secretly in love with her. Wannabe violinist Wen Yi (Guo Biting) is engaged to celebrity presenter Wang Yunfei (Zhang Duo), but on a trip to Matera, Italy, to take part in a violin competition she forms an attachment to a part-time local guide, Li Xiang (Li Chen). Gu Xiaolei (Chen Yihan), who works in Shenzhen airport security, lives with her boyfriend, pilot Ling Xiao (Zheng Kai), who’s terrified of marriage; Gu Xiaolei tries her best to get him to tie the knot. Beijing restaurant manageress Tian Haixin (Liu Tao), unhappily married to chef Cao Dapeng (Wang Zijian), finds she’s pregnant just when a five-star hotel offers her a job on condition she doesn’t get pregnant within three years; Cao Dapeng agrees to an abortion on condition they divorce, but then the couples’ parents, who think they’re happily married, suddenly come to stay.
REVIEW
A smoothly packaged but totally generic rom-com, intercutting four stories, Let’s Get Married 咱们结婚吧 is a good showcase for most of its name leads but doesn’t reach down very far emotionally and goes on half an hour too long. The film deliberately cashes in on that of the hugely successful, 50-part TV rom-com We Get Married (咱们结婚吧, 2013) but, apart from having the same Chinese title, the same director, Liu Jiang 刘江, and same lead actress, Gao Yuanyuan 高圆圆, has no connection with the slickly-shot TV drama, which centred on an unmarried, 32-year-old hotel manager (Gao) and a marriage-shy, 36-year-old marriage registrar (Huang Haibo 黄海波). Liu’s kind-of spin-off replaces the original writer, Meng Yao 孟瑶, with a group of writers contributing the separate stories and co-ordinated by Liu himself. Despite some nice moments, the result suffers from the usual problems of cross-cutting, with none of the strands generating much emotion individually.
Making the least impact is the story of a marriage-shy pilot (Zheng Kai 郑恺) and a marriage-hungry airport security operative (Taiwan’s Chen Yihan 陈意涵), with neither actor getting much screen time together to register their perky playing. An Italian-set episode is let down by the flower-vase performance of Taiwan’s Guo Biting 郭碧婷 (aka Bea Hayden, a quarter-American ex-model best known for the Tiny Times 小时代 quartet) as a violinist who starts to fall for a part-time tour guide (Li Chen 李晨, okay). Much better is the story of a hotel manager (Liu Tao 刘涛) and her dorky chef husband (Wang Zijian 王自健), with TV actress Liu, 37 – in a role originally intended for Qin Hailu 秦海璐 – especially good as a woman trying to balance her career ambitions with social demands and lingering affection for her husband. Unfortunately, both actors’ spirited playing is diluted by the constant cross-cutting with other stories.
The most emotionally resonant relationship is in the story of an unmarried bridal boutique manager (Gao) and a widowed dress designer (Jiang Wu 姜武) who is secretly in love with her. Gao, a considerable movie actress (Driverless 无人驾驶, 2010; Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 单身男女, 2011; Caught in the Web 搜索, 2012) who also shone in the original TV series, bonds terrifically with Jiang (here very reined back), and their story, of two 30-somethings made for each other, has a mellowness and sheer acting heft that is absent from the rest of the film. Among the supporting cast, actress-model Mo Xiaoqi 莫小棋(Ocean Flame 一半海水一半火焰, 2008) has some fun as a complete bitch who marries the former lover of Gao’s character.
Shandong-born Liu, 46, made a very promising feature debut with the screwball, odd-couple character comedy Set Off 即日起程(2008) but subsequently returned to TV drama. Here, he directs with some care, and the whole package has a slick look courtesy German d.p. Florian Zinke 陆一帆 (No Liar, No Cry 不怕贼惦记, 2011; Double Xposure 二次曝光, 2012; Forever Young 怒放之青春再见, 2014). Music by Chinese American Nathan Wang 王宗贤and the Mainland’s Dong Dongdong 董冬冬 jollies things along.
CREDITS
Presented by Perfect World Pictures (CN), Pengkai Film (CN), Taihe Entertainment (CN), Gravity Pictures Film Production (CN), Chao Dao Film (CN), Wanda Media (CN). Produced by Pengkai Film (CN).
Script: Liu Jiang, Wang Hongwei, Wang Yu, Xu Nan. Photography: Florian Zinke. Editing: Zhang Dapu. Music: Dong Dongdong, Nathan Wang. Music direction: Dong Dongdong. Art direction: Li Jingze. Costume design: He Qian. Sound: Dong Xu, Zhang Jia.
Cast: Gao Yuanyuan (Ye Wenwen), Jiang Wu (Chen Zhenxuan), Chen Yihan (Gu Xiaolei), Zheng Kai (Ling Xiao, Gu Xiaolei’s boyfriend), Guo Biting [Bea Hayden] (Wen Yi), Li Chen (Li Xiang), Liu Tao (Tian Haixin), Wang Zijian (Cao Dapeng, Tian Haixin’s husband), Ming Dao (Li Jianfeng, Ye Wenwen’s ex-lover), Sarina (Taiwan fellow tourist in Rome), Zhang Duo (Wang Yunfei, Wen Yi’s fiance), Mo Xiaoqi (Wang Keer, Li Jianfeng’s bride), Tu Honggang (airline captain), Da Zuo, Ying Zhuang.
Release: China, 2 Apr 2015.