Dear Enemy

亲密敌人

China, 2011, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.

Director: Xu Jinglei 徐静蕾.

Rating: 8/10.

The Mainland rom-com goes global, with great chemistry between leads Xu Jinglei and Huang Lixing.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. With the lithium market in a dip, UA Capital Investment Banking, led by hotshot managing director Derek Lee (Huang Lixing), brokers a merger offer to Brandon Mining, one of the world’s big three lithium producers along with Anchor Exploration and Clayton Global. Investigative journalist Henry Ma (Li Zhiting), who runs financial blog Golden Touch, gets wind of the plan and makes it public. UA’s client is believed to be Anchor, and Brandon’s CEO Owen (Wang Minde) considers it a hostile takeover. His financial advisor is Derek Lee’s onetime lover, Amy Liang (Xu Jinglei), associate managing director of Global Alliance Investment Banking, who finally split up with him while on holiday together in Australia 10 months ago, frustrated by his workaholism. Amy Liang’s old friend Rebecca (Liang Yongqi), who works on Derek Lee’s team, advises her not to do battle with Derek Lee, for her own good, but Amy Liang ignores her advice. The cat-and-mouse game starts with Amy Liang and Derek Lee finding themselves both on the same flight to London; Derek Lee claims he is visiting his elder sister, clothes designer Lucy Lee (Zhong Liti), but both are trying to meet the elusive Chen Jiandong (Zhao Baogang), Brandon’s biggest shareholder, to gauge where he stands. Amy Liang finally tracks Chen Jiandong down in South Africa but, as with Derek Lee in London, he’s non-committal. Amy Liang next chases a white knight but the move is stymied by Derek Lee. Suspecting he has a mole on her team, she discovers who it is and plants false information. Realising he’s been outsmarted, Derek Lee has a frank talk with Amy Liang but they end up quarreling again, despite their residual feelings for each other. In a bid to rescue his position, Derek Lee hires Henry Ma to do some investigating for him.

REVIEW

Pushing the envelope again, Xu Jinglei 徐静蕾 makes her fifth outing as both lead actress and director in a similar mainstream vein to her previous movie, Beijing office rom-com Go Lala Go! 杜拉拉升职记 (2010), but, following the latest Mainland trend for overseas locations, goes global with a vengeance. With a fair helping of English dialogue (reasonably well performed and integrated), a story that zips from Hong Kong to London, Australia, Chengdu and South Africa, and a cast and technicians drawn from a Chinese talent pool in the Mainland, Hong Kong, the US, Canada, Taiwan and Austria, Dear Enemy 亲密敌人 is a Mandarin-speaking movie that definitively announces China is a global player. Hong Kong is the main setting but linguistically and culturally the territory has no identity of its own in the film.

Co-written with two of her collaborators on Lala (Wang Yun 王芸 and Zhao Meng 赵梦), but this time not based on a bestseller, the movie takes the popular rom-com genre into the world of high finance, with two former lovers facing off as opposing financial advisors on a hostile takeover. It’s not the first movie in the world to use a business setting for a “frenemy” rom-com, and doesn’t quite bring all its strands together in an emotionally satisfying finale. But beneath the super-glossy surface, which makes Lala look old-fashioned, Xu does bring her trademark melancholy to the material. The expected cat-and-mouse games are there, as are some sharp trade-offs in the dialogue; but as a whole, the film avoids a screwball route. In line with her earlier movies, including the artier Letter from an Unknown Woman 一个陌生女人的来信 (2004) and Dreams May Come 梦想照进现实 (2006), there’s a genuinely involving side to the emotional undercurrents, making Enemy a rom-com with more rom than com.

Re-teaming with Xu after their considerable screen chemistry in Lala, Taiwan-born, California-raised singer Huang Lixing 黄立行 [Stanley Huang] is perfectly cast as workaholic whizz-kid Derek Lee, who screwed up his love-life earlier on and now faces his ex across board-room tables. Huang’s slow-burning appeal, and ability to shift from ruthless to romantic, finds an echo in Xu’s performance as Amy Liang, the most confidant and focused in the 37-year-old actress’ career. Their scenes together power the movie, both on and off the business stage – and especially the latter, whether on a long-hawl flight, a Hong Kong balcony or in a Chengdu bedroom.

In a film that’s also notable for almost all the leading cast (apart from actor-singer Li Zhiting 李治廷 [Aarif Lee]) being over 30, both Hong Kong’s Liang Yongqi 梁咏琪 [Gigi Leung] and Montreal-born, onetime sexpot Zhong Liti 钟丽缇 [Christy Chung] slip easily into the fabric, with Liang in her most natural Mandarin-speaking role to date as Amy Liang’s sympathetic friend. Solid playing also comes from veteran Mainland actor-directors Zhao Baogang 赵宝刚 and Ying Da 英达 as an elusive shareholder and Amy Liang’s bluff father.

On the technical side, standouts are the widescreen photography by Hong Kong’s Guan Zhiyao 关智耀 [Jason Kwan] (Bruce Lee My Brother 李小龙, 2010) and Austria’s Han Xiaosu 韩晓苏, as well as silky smooth editing by Zhang Jia 张佳, here working on material far removed from that of arthouse icon Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯. For the record, Xu has stated this is her last purely mainstream outing as a director. [In the event, proved not true.]

CREDITS

Presented by China Film (CN), Jiangsu Omnijoi Movie (CN), Beijing Kaila Pictures (CN), Wanda Media (CN), Western Movie Group (CN). Produced by China Film Beijing Film Production (CN), Beijing Forbidden City (CN), Beijing Kaila Pictures (CN).

Script: Wang Yun, Zhao Meng, Liu Liyang, Xu Jinglei. Photography: Guan Zhiyao [Jason Kwan], Han Xiaosu. Editing: Zhang Jia. Music: Huang Lixing [Stanley Huang], Zheng Yuanchang [Joe Cheng]. Art direction: Zhang Zhaokang. Costumes: Pan Yingyin, Bi Li. Sound: Li Shuo, Shen Jianqin, An Wei. Executive director: Li Wei.

Cast: Xu Jinglei (Amy Liang), Huang Lixing [Stanley Huang] (Derek Lee), Liang Yongqi [Gigi Leung] (Rebecca), Li Zhiting [Aarif Lee] (Henry Ma), Zhong Liti [Christy Chung] (Lucy Lee, Derek Lee’s elder sister), Wang Minde [Michael Wong] (Owen), Zhao Baogang (Chen Jiandong), Ying Da (Amy Liang’s father), Su Xiaoming (Amy Liang’s mother), Liu Yiwei (Uncle David), Wang Jingying (Tina), Lin Yuan (Yaping), Li Ai (Eva, Mayton Public Relations manager), Liu Mengni (Maggie), Chen Huanren [Tan Hanjin] (Fruit Mix), Tan Junyan [Shaun Tam] (Anthony), Li Jiahao (Simon), Chen Rongjun (Tong, Amy Liang’s driver), Crown Kidd (Xavier), Elisabeth Portas (Catherine Portas, Clayton Global CEO), Yin Ziwei [Terence Yin] (great guy).

Release: China, 23 Dec 2011.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 31 Jan 2012.)