Reversed Destiny
沙漏
China, 2024, colour, 1.85:1, 109 mins.
Director: Wen Jing 温婧.
Rating: 7/10.
Good-looking, well-played story of two high-school BFFs would have been even better with a more structured screenplay.
STORY
Fujian province, eastern China, autumn 2023. At the Rongcheng Nanshan crematorium Mi Sha (Lang Yueting) meets the husband (Zhou Yiwei) of her onetime best friend Mo Xingxing. She is given Mo Xingxing’s funeral urn to “take home” as the latter wished. In Mo Xingxing’s home town, Mi Sha visits Jiang Lan (Zhou Chuchu), once the class bully, now married to former teenage delinquent Bu (Yu Mofan) who has taken over his late father’s noodle restaurant that Mi Sha and Mo Xingxing used to visit as schoolgirls. (Sixteen years earlier, in summer 2007, Mi Sha [Bao Shang’en] had arrived at Tianyi Senior High as a transfer student, along with her older twin brother Mi Li [Wu Jiakai], following a move by their father [Ji Chenmu], a wealthy businessman. Mi Li had ended up setting next to the class bully, Jiang Lan [Chen Xinwei], with whom he immediately started flirting, and Mi Sha had ended up next to the sullen Mo Xingxing [Qiu Tian], a loner who lived with her widowed, alcoholic father [Wu Jun] and was constantly bullied by Jiang Lan and her girl gang. When Mi Sha’s mobile phone had disappeared in class, Mi Sha had blamed Jiang Lan, and stood up to her, but ultimately could not prove anything. As two outsiders, Mi Sha and Mo Xingxing had finally become friends. Both had also grown up without their mothers: Mo Xingxing had still blamed herself for her mother’s death in a traffic accident, while Mi Sha still remembered her actress mother [Wu Dan] walking out on the family. Mi Sha had been invited by Lu Li [Huang Minghao], a senior student who ran the school’s drama club, to audition for his next production. When she had got the part – beating Jiang Lan among many others – Mi Sha, Lu Li and Mo Xingxing had formed a tight trio, with Mi Sha particularly fond of Lu Li, whom all the girls fancied. On opening night, however, Mi Sha had failed to turn up. Jiang Lan had offered to take her place but Lu Li had preferred to cancel the performance. Mo Xingxing had eventually found Mi Sha in a backstreet, stripped and harrassed by teenage delinquent Bu [Gao Mingchen] and his gang. The whole thing had been arranged by Jiang Lan – Bu’s girlfriend – in revenge for not getting the part. When Mi Li had heard this, he had ditched Jiang Lan. Following the scandal, Mi Sha’s father had decided to move the family to Shanghai, though Mi Sha had stongly protested. Meanwhile, Lu Li had found himself increasingly attracted to Mo Xingxing, and the two girls had separately learned the truth about their mothers. This had brought them even closer together but, when Jiang Lan had re-started her bullying tactics, Mi Sha’s father had insisted on the two girls ending their friendship.)
REVIEW
Two high-school girls from different backgrounds form a deep friendship that’s then threatened by various forces in Reversed Destiny 沙漏, a good-looking first feature by Mainland-born director Wen Jing 温婧 that has a strong lead cast but whose emotional power is diluted by a scattergun screenplay. The film is still worth a look thanks to Wen’s seductive direction and the performances of many of its young, not especially well-known cast. But despite the name of popular novelist Rao Xueman 饶雪漫 on the credits, it failed to click as a youth movie at the summer box office, taking a puny RMB30 million.
The prolific Rao, 51, who’s best known for her young-love novels, wrote the screenplay herself from (mostly) the first book (see cover, left) in her trilogy Sandglass 沙漏, initially published as three separate novels during 2007 and later joined by a fourth as a kind of coda. The genesis of the film goes back almost a decade, first announced in late 2015 following the surprise box-office hit of youth drama The Left Ear 左耳 (2015), based on Rao’s novel of the same name. The project was to be the directing debut of Hong Kong actor Zhong Hanliang 钟汉良 [Wallace Chung], with a script by Rao herself and with trendy writer Han Han 韩寒, who’d just debuted as a director with The Continent 后会无期 (2014), as producer. The Left Ear had also marked the directing debut of an actor, Taiwan’s Su Youpeng 苏有朋 [Alec Su], and Rao had also co-scripted it.
However, no more was heard of the project until five years later: in Sep 2022 it was re-announced, the script having been passed by China Film Administration a year earlier. After reportedly going through a dozen versions, Rao’s screenplay finally went before the cameras during six weeks in Jul-Aug 2023, in Fujian province, eastern China, with Wen directing. A graduate of the New York Film Academy whose previous works include the short Ten 拾 (2013) and the online micro-drama series Three of Them 别惹白鸽 (2021), she’s currently working on her second feature, the drama Regret Medicine 后悔药, centred on an unhappy housewife.
The script, credited solely to Rao, is a busy mix of familiar and not-so-familiar elements from high-school movies. There are old chestnuts like the new transfer student, the class bully, an intense BFF relationship, and two girls fancying the same boy, as well as less common things like a poor girl/rich girl friendship and deeply buried lies and misconceptions about their two mothers. As a result, there’s little downtime in the film, but there’s also no sense of any over-arching structure as all the elements are worked out – some, like the two girls fancying the same man, are settled almost offhandedly, and others, like the mother issue that binds them together, are untidily developed.
Told mostly in flashback, with occasional cutbacks to the present as Mi Sha strolls through the ruined school in which it all happened 16 years ago, the film is also occasionally confusing as to who is who, especially in the later moments. A less busy, better shaped screenplay, with more time given to side characters like class bully Jiang Lan and Mi Sha’s twin brother Mi Li, would have benefited things as a whole. And while the film is to be commended for not overdoing the class divide between the two girls, it could have done with a little more exploration, given that it underpins so much.
Chongqing-born Qiu Tian 邱天, 25, who was notable as the lead’s female friend in the Japan-set Before Next Spring 如果有一天我将会离开你 (2021), manages to make the sullen character of Mo Xingxing interesting as she gradually blooms under Mi Sha’s friendship. Shenzhen-born Bao Shang’en 包上恩, 22, is equally good as the more open, gutsy rich girl, the newcomer from Nanjing who doesn’t feel constrained by local currents. As the formulary hunk between them, singer Huang Minghao 黄明昊, 22, is just that. Other roles are strongly drawn, including Taiwan’s Chen Xinwei 陈昕葳, 23, as the female bully and pianist-turned-actress Lang Yueting 郎月婷 (Mountain Cry 喊•山, 2015; Seven Killings 刀尖, 2023) in a guest role as the modern-day Mi Sha.
Good-looking photography by Taiwan d.p. Yu Jingping 余静萍 (Zinnia Flower 百日告别, 2015; SoulMate 七月与安生, 2016; Better Days 少年的你, 2019; Song of Spring 妈妈！, 2022) typically never gets in the way of the actors. The music score by young Nanjing-born Chen Xueran 陈雪燃 is smoothly effective without being in any way innovative, as is the editing by newbie Liu Xi 刘玺. Veteran Taiwan singer Qi Qin 齐秦 [Chyi Chin], a friend of Rao’s from the excellent Somewhere Winter 大约在冬季(2019), gets a credit for “artistic supervision”.
The film’s Chinese title means “Sandglass” or “Hourglass”, referring to the one given to Mi Sha by her mother when leaving. Quite what the English title has to do with anything is unclear.
CREDITS
Presented by Emei Film Group (CN), Jiangsu The Dream House Film Production (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Beijing HY Media (CN), Sichuan Aichuan Image Motion Pictures (CN), Chengdu Film & TV City Culture Media (CN). Produced by Jiangsu The Dream House Film Production (CN), Sichuan Aichuan Image Motion Pictures (CN).
Script: Rao Xueman. Novel: Rao Xueman. Photography: Yu Jingping. Editing: Liu Xi. Music: Chen Xueran. Art direction: Shi Rongfeng, Dong Zhiliang. Styling: Liu Yimu. Sound: Wan Gui’ao, Zhang Zhenyu. Action: Yan Yikun. Visual effects: Han Jintong (123 Vision Pictures). Artistic supervision: Qi Qin. Executive direction: He Song.
Cast: Qiu Tian (Mo Xingxing), Bao Shang’en (Mi Sha), Huang Minghao (Lu Li), Chen Xinwei (Jiang Lan), Wu Jiakai (Mi Li), Gao Mingchen (Bu), Lang Yueting (adult Mi Sha), Zhou Yiwei (Edison Jiang, Mo Xingxing’s husband), Fu Mengbo (adult Lu Li), Zhou Chuchu (adult Jiang Lan), Wu Dan (Lin Suyi, Mi Sha’s mother), Wu Jun (Mo Hui, Mo Xingxing’s father), Ji Chenmu (Mi Nuofan, Mi Sha’s father), Du Lingli (Xu Lin), Yu Mofan (adult Bu), Wang Jiaqiang (teacher), Wang Yanjiang (Bu’s father), Yao Tong (adult Mo Xingxing), Li Yue (Lu Li’s mother), Zhang Lei (Lu Li’s father), Xia Chenyi (doctor).
Release: China, 21 Jun 2024.