21 Karat
21克拉
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 94 mins.
Director: He Nian 何念.
Rating: 6/10.
Enjoyably fluffy odd-couple rom-com gets by on its quality dialogue and the two leads’ chemistry.
STORY
Shanghai, Oct 2016. After splitting with her lover, business tycoon Bei (Da Peng), the shopaholic Liu Jiayin (Dilraba Dilmurat) is told by her business manager Gary (Liu Ruilin) that Bei has frozen her credit card and all her assets, including a manicure business, coffee shop and yoga studio. She is forced to humiliatingly withdraw from a splashy American-football charity match co-organised with two Shanghai taitai, Ma Lala (Rong Rong) and Zhu Gonggong (Zhang Yang Zhizi). After selling off all her luxury goods to settle her debts, she decides to rent out part of her flat in Jing’an district to be able to continue to pay the mortgage. One applicant is theatre actor Wang Jiwei (Guo Jingfei), who’s just been sacked by director He Danian (Wang Hao), partly due to an accident in which Liu Jiayin was involved. With the help of ex-girlfriend Vivian (Zhang Zhongyi) – now He Danian’s partner – posing as his wife, the congenitally stingy Wang Jiwei manages to do a deal with Liu Jiayin and also bargain down the price of the monthly rent. After immediately spending his RMB10,000 deposit on luxury goods, Liu Jiayin confesses to Wang Jiwei that’s she’s bankrupt and the flat is about to repossessed by her bank. Next day, after messing up a second chance that Wang Jiwei has been given by He Danian, Liu Jiayin takes Wang Jiwei to a department store to spend the night. He reveals that, because of his lifelong dislike of spending money – in the past six years his total expenses have been only RMB10,000, including two holidays – he actually has a considerable amount saved up. He urges her to get a job so she can pay him back the RMB10,000 deposit he gave her. Liu Jiayin’s attempts to get a job prove disastrous; finally, Wang Jiwei, who’s a considerable cook, suggests he and she start a takeaway food business, with him providing the start-up capital. He’s also started to fall for her, but complications arise when Liu Jiayin’s past starts to catch up with her.
REVIEW
A cheapskate actor and a spendthrift airhead are thrown together in odd-couple rom-com 21 Karat 21克拉, an enjoyable piece of Shanghai-set fluff that gets by on the chemistry between its two leads and the quality of the dialogue. In his feature debut after several TV drama series, Nanjing-born director He Nian 何念, 37, concocts good chemistry between actor Guo Jingfei 郭京飞 (who’s previously worked with He on two TVDs) and fast-rising Uyghur actress Dilraba Dilmurat 迪丽热巴 (the tomboy in Namiya 解忧杂货店, 2017) that carries quite an emotional punch by the end despite unlikely plot turns and situations. Mainland audiences have responded with a so-so RMB100 million or so.
Guo, 38, who was born in Beijing but studied at Shanghai Theatre Academy, has been around for a while in supporting roles (the duplicitous boyfriend in rom-com Love Is Not Blind 失恋33天, 2011; the heroine’s best friend in horror Bunshinsaba 笔仙, 2012) but until recently hasn’t made much much impression on the big screen, partly because he was earlier focused on the stage and then moved into TV. He had a sizeable but weakly-written supporting role, as an epicene demon cop, in Hanson and the Beast 二代妖精之今生有幸 (2017) but 21 Karat is his first big-screen leading role, ironically playing a Shanghai theatre actor.
Guo’s character is a clever combination of a miserly but intelligent know-all who just can’t get the big break he thinks he’s owed in life, and the actor shows a nice line in straightfaced, hesitant humour that makes a basically unlikeable character likeable. He pairs well with Dilmurat, 25, as the shopaholic who’s also a clever combination of airhead and realist. As in her first leading role, Mr Pride and Miss Prejudice 傲娇与偏见 (2016), the Xinjiang-born actress, who’s so far worked mostly in TV, shows an impressive range, switching effortlessly from dim to determined, reserved to romantic, while all the time looking fabulous in designer clothes and handling the physical stuff with verve. Together they even give guest stars Bao Bei’er 包贝尔 (as a Shanghai cop) and Da Peng 大鹏 (as her rich ex-lover) a run for their money.
Apart from the unobvious chemistry between the two leads, what’s notable about the film is how, as it bounces from one unlikely situation to another with an almost fairytale-like tone, it’s driven by quality dialogue rather than action or technique. When the rom finally enters, dead on cue, after 45 minutes of situation com, the audience realises how well it already knows the two characters as they finally open up about their feelings. There’s an element of padding in the final half-hour as He and his two fellow writers pile one more development on another, but by the end the viewer has a sense of shared journey with the two oddballs.
Technically the film is okay, without being glossy in any way. Set in Shanghai, it’s peppered with local personalities, including actress-presenter Rong Rong 榕榕 as a catty Shanghai taitai, theatre actress Zhang Zhongyi 张钟仪 as the ex-girlfriend of Guo’s character, and Shanghai-born musician-presenter Wang Hao 王昊 as a theatre director. Though the film earlier went by the (correct) English title 21 Carats, it was later changed for some reason to the doubly incorrect 21 Karat.
CREDITS
Presented by SMG Pictures (CN), Beijing Asian Union Culture Media Investment (CN), Legendary Pictures (Shanghai) (CN).
Script: He Nian, Ma Tian, Li Yang. Photography: Zhao Mo. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai]. Music: Wang Hao. Art direction: Lu Wei. Sound: Wang Danrong, Jiang Jie. Visual effects: Shi Ming, Wang Anyi.
Cast: Guo Jingfei (Wang Jiwei), Dilraba Dilmurat (Liu Jiayin), Liu Ruilin (Gary, Liu Jiayin’s business manager), Wang Hao (He Danian, theatre director), Zhang Zhongyi (Vivian, He Danian’s girlfriend), Rong Rong (Ma Lala, Shanghai taitai), Zhang Yang Zhizi (Zhu Gonggong, Shanghai taitai), Da Peng [Dong Changpeng] (Bei, Liu Jiayin’s ex-lover), Bao Bei’er (Hong, police officer).
Release: China, 20 Apr 2018.