The Last Women Standing

剩者为王

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 94 mins.

Director: Luo Luo 落落 [Zhao Jiarong 赵佳蓉].

Rating: 8/10.

Way above-average office rom-com, with a melancholy slant and aces performance by Shu Qi.

STORY

Shanghai, 14 Feb 2015. Single and alone on Valentine’s Day, thirtysomething marketing director Sheng Ruxi (Shu Qi) just can’t find love with the right man. She remembers past Valentine Days: in 2008 when she had a boyfriend, in 2011 when she was successful at work and had no time for romance, and in 2013 by which time she’d stopped looking for it… One morning, her manager, Wang Lan (Hao Lei), introduces Sheng Ruxi to a new arrival in the department, 25-year-old Ma Sai (Peng Yuyan), a bright and breezy young guy who later accompanies Sheng Ruxi to a meeting where she has to persuade a client (Zhang Xilin) back into the fold. Ma Sai is impressed when Sheng Ruxi wins the client back by a simple trick. Sheng Ruxi’s mother (Pan Hong) incessantly nags her to get married, and even organises blind dates – the latest being with a hospital doctor, Bai (Xing Jiadong). When the mother has to be rushed to hospital, she ends up in the same one where Bai works. At work, Wang Lan cancels her wedding, after being cheated on by her fiance, and Sheng Ruxi wonders whether it’s time to just give up on love. She and Ma Sai end up platonically sharing a hotel room when their flight is delayed during a business trip; they spend most of the night talking and getting to know each other. Then Sheng Ruxi is told by her old friend Zhang Yu (Xiong Dailin) that she’s donating one of her kidneys to an ex-boyfriend; she urges Sheng Ruxi, for once in her life, to be equally selfless in committing to someone. With her mother now showing early signs of Alzheimer’s, Sheng Ruxi comes to a decision.

REVIEW

On the face of it, there’s nothing especially new about The Last Women Standing 剩者为王 – another Mainland office rom-com centred on an unmarried thirtysomething’s career/love problems and adapted from a novel by a writer of the same, so-called “1980s generation”. Starring Taiwan’s Shu Qi 舒淇 and Peng Yuyan 彭于晏 [Eddie Peng], set in Shanghai, and photographed by top Taiwan d.p. Li Pingbin 李屏宾 [Mark Lee], it would seem to have all the makings of a super-glossy, super-fluffy slice of throwaway entertainment. All the above is true, but the big surprise – especially as it’s directed and scripted by a complete novice, the pseudonymous Luo Luo 落落 – is that Last Women also has an emotional depth that most Mainland rom-coms can only dream about.

Luo Luo is the pen name of 34-year-old Shanghai writer/editor Zhao Jiarong 赵佳蓉. The original novel, her third, was published in two parts – Queen Stain: Season One 剩者为王I, 2011, and Queen Stain: Season Two 剩者为王II, 2012, whatever “Queen Stain” is meant to mean – and the rights were snapped up by Teng Huatao 滕华涛, director of hit rom-com Love Is Not Blind 失恋33天 (2011), when the first volume appeared. After the second was published, he and Luo Luo reportedly spent over a year working on the script, with Luo Luo keen to retain as much of the novel’s plot and flavour as possible. Teng takes no script credit on the film: both that and the direction are credited solely to Luo Luo, who had no previous experience in either. However, Teng appears to have made sure that she was surrounded by top talent: d.p. Li is very prominently credited, editing is by Liu Lei 刘磊 (Teng’s cutter on Love Is Not Blind), music is by the experienced An Wei 安巍, and so on.

So what gives the film its special flavour? For a start it has a mature cast, with none of the leads below their mid-30s: baby-faced Peng, 34, plays a decade younger than he is in real life; Shu, 40, similarly (though it’s never stated exactly how old her character is meant to be); her two best pals in the film are played by Mainland actresses Hao Lei 郝蕾, 37, and Xiong Dailin 熊黛林, 35; and her mother and father by two veterans – China’s Pan Hong 潘虹, 61, and Taiwan’s Jin Shijie 金士杰, 64. Among the main cast, Peng is the youngest in reality as well as on-screen and, though age doesn’t necessarily imply any kind of quality, it does benefit the approach that Luo Luo takes to the material.

That approach is almost melancholic. Last Women is not your average rom-com that’s driven by plot mechanics and elaborate twists. There’s almost zero real plot, and what there is is pretty standard situations given a slight twist: the two leads end up sharing a hotel room, but pass the night gabbing rather than grabbing; and when one finally climbs off the fence, the response is not what they (or the audience) are expecting. There’s a melancholy rather than manic-ness to the whole film, which fits the subject-matter of China’s so-called “left-over women” 剩女 – unmarried thirtysomethings, born in the 1980s, who’ve put career before family – without becoming soppy or corny. Last Women isn’t just a series of rom-com scenes between the two protagonists but more about the female lead’s process of deciding what to do with her life and her relationship with her parents, especially her mother. (Luo Luo has stated that most of the two women’s dialogue is based on conversations with her own mother.)

And the reason for the success of this approach is almost entirely due to Shu’s aces performance, which pushes a 7/10 movie up one more point. After a career largely spent looking as if she’s just wandered on set and is making it up as she goes along, the tireless Shu (over 80 films in 20 years) is now bringing a new authority to her performances as she slides elegantly into middle age – both in commercial blockbusters like Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 西游  降魔篇(2013), Gone with the Bullets 一步之遥 (2014) or Mojin : The Lost Legend 寻龙诀 (2015) as well as in artier fare like The Assassin 刺客聂隐娘 (2015). The screenplay of Last Women isn’t great literature, but Shu gives a 90-minute master class in commercial acting, as well as simply looking fabulous. It’s she who provides most of the film’s magical moments, as when her character brings herself to say “I like you” to Peng’s in the office, or when she walks away with dignity from a bruising exchange – scenes where time momentarily seems suspended. With a lot less experience, Peng is basically acted off the screen, though that also fits his role of a cheeky, respectful 25-year-old.

Among a seasoned cast, the only other actor to equal Shu is veteran Jin in a couple of scenes as her father. One of the very few Taiwan actors of his vintage who regularly works in Mainland productions, Jin just gets better and better, whether in comic cameos (the local godfather in Detective Chinatown, 2015) or here as a quietly sympathetic father (in a single, four-minute take near the end). Providing strong support at every turn is the unobtrusive direction, with Li’s camera subtly framing the characters as it quietly prowls around the action; An’s attentive scoring, which is not the usual rom-com wallpaper; and Liu’s editing, which brings the whole thing in at an admirably tight 94 mins. Last Women isn’t faultless – the coda is weak, and the roles of Hao and Xiong could have been more developed – but it’s still a fresh entry in an over-worked genre.

The film’s original Chinese title (the same as the novels’) literally means “Left Over for the King” or, more freely, “Waiting for Her Prince”. Thankfully the awful English title of Zhao’s original novels wasn’t retained for the movie. For the record, the family name of Shu’s character, Shèng 盛, is pronounced identically to the word for “left-over” 剩 – a rather unsubtle touch that’s been retained from the novels .

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Film Group (CN), iCinema (CN), Haining iCinema (CN), Huace Film & TV (Tianjin), Beijing iTime Production (CN).

Script: Luo Luo. Novels: Luo Luo. Photography: Li Pingbin [Mark Lee]. Editing: Liu Lei. Music: An Wei. Art direction: Lu Tianhang. Costume design: Han Seong-gyeong. Sound: Yang Jingyi, Wan Danrong, Tu Yi’nan. Visual effects: Zhuang Yan (Technicolor [Beijing] Digital Technology). Executive direction: Gao Zhuangzhuang.

Cast: Shu Qi (Sheng Ruxi), Peng Yuyan [Eddie Peng] (Ma Sai), Pan Hong (Sheng Ruxi’s mother), Jin Shijie (Sheng Ruxi’s father), Xing Jiadong (Bai, doctor), Hao Lei (Wang Lan), Xiong Dailin (Zhang Yu), Zhang Xilin (Xu, client), Zhang Wen (Xu’s secretary), Du Jiayi (office head), Wang Sisi, Jing Hao (Sheng Ruxi’s classmates), Chen Xiaoping (Zhou, Sheng Ruxi’s secretary).

Release: China, 6 Nov 2015.