Yes, I Do!

我的女友是机器人

China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 110 mins.

Director: Wang Weicheng 王韦程.

Rating: 6/10.

Close remake of sci-fi rom-com Cyborg She  is as good as, if not slightly better than, the Japanese original.

STORY

Xucheng city, on the banks of the Yangtze river, central China, 2 Jun 2019. During a date that is going nowhere, loser Fang Yuan (Bao Bei’er) is suddenly approached in the street by a pretty girl (Xin Zhilei) who asks him to pay for a dress she’s just taken in a department store. Later that evening, celebrating his 30th birthday alone in a hotpot restaurant, she suddenly turns up again, says it’s her birthday too, orders a huge meal, and then makes a run for it instead of paying the bill. After escaping, she and Fang Yuan stroll the city; arriving outside his flat, he tries to say goodbye but then, to his astonishment, she accuses him of never having loved her before disappearing. One year later, on 2 Jun 2020, a cyborg looking just like her materialises in the city, steals clothes from a department store, and turns up in the same restaurant, where Fang Yuan, alone, is celebrating his 31st birthday. After she rescues him from a falling chandelier and flying loudspeakers, he takes her back to his flat, where she projects a message for him from 65 years in the future: his 96-year-old self, crippled in an accident 65 years earlier, has sent him a female cyborg to protect him against any such accidents; he spent his life developing the cyborg which is programmed to learn from human behaviour. Fang Yuan names her Chuyi 初一 (“Original One”). As his “personal bodyguard” she accompanies him everywhere. One of his odd jobs is working as a tour guide for his friend Zhong Ba (Wei Xiang), and Chuyi helps with translation for a group of Japanese the next day; she also saves Zhong Ba from a collapsing swing ride. After six months or so, Fang Yuan and Chuyi have become like a real couple and when, on Chinese New Year 2021, he tells her he misses his hometown (since destroyed by an earthquake) she takes him back in time to his childhood there. Fang Yuan buys the small repair business of an older friend with the intent of him and Chuyi settling down. But when he finally kisses her, he realises she’s still a cyborg, unable to naturally reciprocate affection or feel human emotions of any kind. Exasperated, he tells her to leave him. And then a massive earthquake hits the city.

REVIEW

A geeky loser finds himself with a beautiful female cyborg as his “personal bodyguard” in Yes, I Do! 我的女友是机器人, a remake of the 2008 Japanese movie Cyborg She 僕の彼女はサイボーグ (see poster, left) that hardly deviates from the original and in some respects actually improves on it, thanks to a more relaxed approach to the subject matter and good performances by leads Bao Bei’er 包贝尔 and Xin Zhilei 辛芷蕾 as human and robot. Shot last summer and originally intended as a 2020 Valentine’s Day release, it finally emerged this month to a meh response of RMB42 million, with baby-faced comic Bao proving again that he’s not a guaranteed box-office draw.

The bigger question of why to remake Cyborg She after more than a decade – especially when the original Japanese film flopped on Mainland release in 2009 (see poster, left) – is answered by the fact that Yes, I Do!  started production under the original’s director, Gwak Jae-yong 곽재용 | 郭在容. A South Korean whose chequered career has bounced around between his homeland, Japan and China, Gwak is still best known for his mega-hit My Sassy Girl 엽기적인 그녀 (2001), plus the romance The Classic 클래식 (2003). Japanese-financed, Cyborg She, aka Cyborg Girl and My Girlfriend Is a Cyborg, was the fourth of a series of “weird-chick” rom-coms, started with My Sassy Girl and continued with Windstruck 내 여자친구를 소개합니다 (2004) and My Mighty Princess 무림여대생 (2008), both Korean productions. The box-office failure of Princess led Gwak to Japan for Cyborg She, and the latter’s blah box-office led him then to the Mainland, where he first tried to set up the China-Japan costume drama Yang Guifei, finally withdrawing from the project soon after shooting began due to differences with the Chinese producers. (The much-fraught production finally emerged in 2015 as Lady of the Dynasty 王朝的女人  杨贵妃, starring Fan Bingbing 范冰冰 under several Chinese directors.) Gwak did manage to get two Mainland films off the ground, rom-coms Meet Miss Anxiety 我的早更女友 (2014) and Crying Out in Love 在世界中心呼唤爱 (2016), both weakly scripted and the latter a box-office flop, before making two more films in South Korea and Japan respectively.

With his return to the Mainland for a remake of Cyborg She, history seems to have repeated itself. Gwak appears to have been on board as director during shooting in Aug 2019 (including a sequence shot in Anhui province for a childhood flashback) but at some point he was replaced by the film’s creative producer 监制 Wang Weicheng 王韦程, a commercial journeyman who’s co-directed the comedies Turn Around 美人邦 (2014) and Who Moved My Dream 谁动了我的梦想 (2014), plus solo-directed Money Game 黄金福将 (2015) – all under the pseudonym Wang Wei 王伟 – as well as working in the theatre. Gwak’s name appears nowhere on the finished product, except in the end credits where it’s noted the film is an adaptation of Cyborg She.

All this apart, the movie shows no signs of multiple creative hands, and in the customarily smooth editing of Zhang Wenting 张文婷 moves along fluidly. Without being a shot-by-shot remake – though some individual shots do recall the original – the script, credited to (the possibly pseudonymous) Jin Lu 金璐, makes no major changes to the overall structure and generally follows the original very closely. Certain sequences are replaced with material more acceptable to the Mainland market: the restaurant shoot-up by a crazed gunman is changed to a crashing chandelier; the episode of a psycho at loose in a girls’ high school is replaced by a collapsing swing ride in a funfair; there are no scenes of alcohol playing havoc with the cyborg’s systems (in fact, she can hold her baijiu in this version); there are also no university scenes, as the geeky hero is here 10 years older; and, most notably, the coda, which lasted 15 minutes in the Japanese film, is reduced to a third of that length while still retaining the original twist (and even adding a jokey extra one). Cyborg She was actually stronger in its 100-minute, better-paced international version than its more discursive, 126-minute original; Yes, I Do! falls between the two with its 110-minute running time, but just about justifies it.

Despite the occasional bursts of visual effects (here okay, without being anything special), ultimately the story lives or dies by the central relationship and the actors’ chemistry. Thirty-six-year-old Bao, with hair this time, is good as the nerdy human, playing more scenes for goofy comedy than Japanese lead Koide Keisuke 小出惠介. In the hardest role, Xin Zhilei, 34, plays a more mature cyborg than the original’s much younger Ayase
Haruka 绫濑遥, is much less squeaky-cute and, in fitting with the cultural change from Japan to China, more characterful within the largely expressionless confines of her role. Both briefly let rip in a short montage of them spoofing movie icons; but even when playing more robotic, Xin, as she showed in horror Bunshinsaba II 笔仙II (2013), as the cellist in Blood of Youth 少年 (2016) and as a super-swordswoman in the excellent Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield 绣春刀II 修罗战场 (2017), manages to infuse the character with a mature personality. No real emotion is generated between the two leads, but that’s the fault of the script and central idea, not the actors. As the hero’s business friend, Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花 theatre troupe member Wei Xiang 魏翔 (the football trainer in Hello Mr. Billionaire 西虹市首富, 2018) chews the scenery in the only other substantial role.

The Chinese title literally means “My Girlfriend Is a Robot”. In the widescreen photography by d.p. Li Xuetao 李雪涛, Chongqing stands in handsomely for the fictional city of Xucheng.

CREDITS

Presented by Ningyang Pictures (Foshan) (CN), Beijing Joy Eastern Media (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Tianjin Hanyu Film (CN). Produced by Futuristic Picture Media (Tianjin) (CN).

Script: Jin Lu. Photography: Li Xuetao. Editing: Zhang Wenting. Music direction: Jiang Linfeng. Art direction: Xing Liuting. Styling: Chen Jingyan. Action: Guo Fengxi. Special effects: Hou Yuchang. Visual effects: Xie Yiwen.

Cast: Bao Bei’er (Fang Yuan), Xin Zhilei (Chuyi; Chu’er), Wei Xiang (Zhong Ba), Liu Guanlin (hotpot restaurant owner), Liang Danbao (Alice), Wang Yinuo (Xiaotao), Wei Yunxi (Chen), Mo Yang (Chen’s husband), Hong Yuan (Wang), Liu Zihe (bus driver), Jin Shunzi (Fang Yuan’s landlady), Mo Xiyang (landlady’s son), Wang Wending (young Fang Yuan), Ji Meiyi (Xiaohua), Yang Jinheng (hotpot restaurant owner’s son).

Release: China, 11 Sep 2020.