Love Is Beautiful
爱, 很美
China, 2013, colour, 1.85:1, 96 mins.
Director: Yin Yue 殷悅.
Rating: 4/10.
Rom-commy fluff, set in the beauty industry, is under-written and over-played.
STORY
Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, the present day. Qian Xiaofei (Ying’er), who graduated from university two years ago, has been out of work for two months and can’t pay her rent. She finally gets a job in the client service department of Charm, a beauty products company run by Cao Jun (Luo Dahua), whose product development head is the ambitious Chen Jiarong (Huang Ziteng), a professor. Qian Xiaofei discovers her boss is Gao Shasha (Liu Yuqi), an old friend from high school who is now a high-powered executive. Much to the chagrin of Lei Xiaozhi (Zhou Mi), who likes her, Gao Shasha falls for Chen Jiarong. Meanwhile, Qian Xiaofei develops a close relationship with Lei Zhengyu (Guo Pinchao), a photographer who is renting a room with the same landlady as her. Then one day Gao Shasha is kidnapped.
REVIEW
Following his 50-minute featurette Love’s Secret 她与他的秘密 (2012), director-producer Yin Yue 殷悅, 27, makes a much more fluffy feature debut with Love Is Beautiful 爱，很美, a terminally wispy rom-com set in the beauty industry. Yin, a graduate of Zhejiang University of Technology’s Advertising Faculty who began with DV productions, appears to be aiming at a kind of South Korean aesthetic, and even includes in the cast Zhou Mi 周觅, a member of Chinese-South Korean boyband Super Junior-M. What it lacks in the script department (little real plot) and technical finesse (gloss on a budget), it makes up for with a kind of chickflick cuteness targeted at teenage girls – though, as Tiny Times 1 小时代 (2013) has recently shown, even this bar has been substantially raised in China’s market.
The only cast member not over-acting is 36-year-old Taiwan actor-singer Guo Pinchao 郭品超 (Westgate Tango 西门町, 2012), who brings a relaxed charm to the otherwise over-played proceedings, as a photographer hitched up with a daffy, jobless graduate (played by TV actress-singer Ying’er 颖儿, 24) who gets a job in a corrupt beauty-products company. Ying’er (Crazy Foolish Thieves 疯狂的蠢贼, 2012) is better here at goofy than romantic, and is frequently outclassed in screen clout by Liu Yuqi 刘羽琦 as her vampy ex-classmate, while Hong Kong TV actor Luo Dahua 骆达华, okay in recent Mainland psychodrama Insistence 守株人 (2012), flounces around as the company’s very gay owner. On the technical side, Taiwan-born, now China-based d.p. Zhao Faquan 赵发全 serves up a reasonable looking product on Hangzhou locations but one that looks over-bright on the big screen. Par for the genre, cute animation pops up regularly.
CREDITS
Presented by Zhejiang Huayou Media (CN). Produced by Shenhai Film Studio (CN).
Script: Yin Yue, Wang Jie, Yu Han, Sun Cijiao, Lu Yunting. Photography: Zhao Faquan. Editing: Yin Yue, Lou Xiaochong. Music: Gao Yang. Theme-song vocals: Sara [Gang Se-hua], Liu Jia. Art direction: Sun Yitao. Costumes: Sun Chunlin. Styling: Tom. Special effects: Zhang Ling. Visual effects: Wu Peilong, Chen Xinyi. Animation: Wang Jian. Executive direction: Shi Zhenfei.
Cast: Guo Pinchao (Lei Zhengyu), Ying’er (Qian Xiaofei), Luo Dahua (Cao Jun), Liu Yuqi (Gao Shasha), Zhou Mi (Lei Xiaozhi), Huang Ziteng (Chen Jiarong, professor).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Focus China), 20 Jun 2013.
Release: China, 25 Jul 2013.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 9 Jul 2013.)