You Are My Sunshine

何以笙箫默

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.

Directors: Yang Wenjun 杨文军, Huang Bin 黄斌.

Rating: 4/10.

Despite a name cast, this second-hand romantic drama sinks with all hands.

STORY

Shanghai, the present day. After seven years in the US, where she worked her way up from taking tourists’ portraits in San Francisco to fashion photography in New York, Zhao Mosheng (Yang Mi) has been back in China for three months, working for style magazine Shows. One evening she bumps into her former love, lawyer He Yichen (Huang Xiaoming), who is with his foster-sister He Yimei (Yang Ying). Zhao Mosheng freaks out, and He Yichen leaves, dropping his wallet in which he still has her photo. Next day she drops off the wallet at his office, but without the photo. (She fell for and pursued him when he was a law student at Huangpu University.) Later she drops off the photo, along with some durian-flavoured sweets to remind him of their times together. After several meetings, he confesses he still loves her. However, when the subject comes up of why he suddenly dumped her seven years ago, and told her to go to the US on her own, he says it was due to a meeting with her father, Zhao Qingyuan (Yao Anlian), whom he discovered was also the mayor of Shanghai. Zhao Mosheng apologises but then tells He Yichen she got married three years ago in the US. The two part. (Her father and stepmother Pei Fangmei [Chen Chong] had been responsible for driving He Yichen’s father to suicide. To make amends, her father had offered to support He Yichen if he wanted to accompany Zhao Mosheng to the US, but He Yichen had refused.) When He Yichen is hospitalised with acute stomach bleeding, Zhao Mosheng is contacted by He Yimei, who has been looking after him. Though her surname is the same, He Yimei says she has no blood connection with He Yichen, who was adopted by her family after his parents’ death; He Yimei tells Zhao Mosheng that she loves He Yichen, whom she’s been caring for since his split with Zhao Mosheng seven years ago. When He Yichen leaves hospital, Zhao Mosheng visits him but he seems uninterested in her, even when she says she’s actually divorced. However, the next time they meet, he suddenly proposes marriage. Soon afterwards, however, Zhao Mosheng’s ex-husband, star entrepreneur Ying Hui (Tong Dawei), turns up.

REVIEW

Despite glossy packaging and a youngish name cast, You Are My Sunshine 何以笙箫默 sinks with all hands due to a rubbish script, clockwork performances and direction that veers wildly between romantic melodrama and fluffy rom-com. Its hunky China box office [RMB354 million] seems largely due to the popularity of its source material – a 2005 novel by Mainland writer Gu Man 顾漫, originally published online in 2003 – despite having already been adapted into a 32-part TV drama broadcast a few months earlier. Given its attractive cast (Huang Xiaoming 黄晓明, Yang Mi 杨幂, Tong Dawei 佟大为, Yang Ying 杨颖 [Angelababy]), aspirational setting (upscale Shanghai, bits in San Francisco) and photogenic qualities (courtesy Taiwan Canadian d.p. Che Liangyi 车亮逸 [Randy Che] and Taiwan p.d. Huang Wei 黄薇 [Rosalie Huang], both from the Tiny Times 小时代  films), it should be 100 minutes of slickly enjoyable romantic nonsense. Instead, it barely gets its wheels off the ground from the start.

On a tour boat in San Francisco harbour in 2008, wannabe photographer Zhao Mosheng (Yang Mi) ducks and dives when she recognises someone on board. Cut to Shanghai 2015, where she’s just returned and is a well-known fashion photographer, and one evening she bumps into old college flame He Yichen (Huang) in company with girlfriend He Yimei (Yang Ying). Zhao Mosheng freaks out, she and He Yichen finally get together, and their whole tangled backstory is unveiled via copious flashbacks as they try to get back together in the present. The film pretty much wraps up at the 70-minute mark, but then drags on for another half-hour with more skeletons (and two new characters) coming out of the cupboard.

The screenplay, by three hands including web novelist/TV scriptwriter Yong Qun 泳群, is basically a long series of meetings and emotional stand-offs between the two leads, punctuated by flashbacks to their younger selves (with actress Yang Mi in a cutesy short haircut) and dialogue that’s sometimes laugh-out-loud bad (He Yichen: “I’m not drunk. I’m crazy”). The stop-start construction isn’t helped by the two directors appearing to have no clear idea of what kind of movie they’re making.

Shanghai-born Yang Wenjun 杨文军, 45, is an experienced TV drama director-producer who previously made CCTV telefilm Love Insurance 爱情保险 (2001), while fellow Shanghaier Huang Bin 黄斌, 34, is a producer-manager-marketing guru who’s worked on films by Chen Kaige 陈凯歌 and Lu Chuan 陆川, and is currently CEO of actor Huang Xiaoming’s production company. Neither bring any form or thoroughgoing tone to the package, veering from show-offy sequences (an elaborate “single take” in Zhao Mosheng’s flat under the opening credits), through melodrama and rom-com cliches, to bits recalling other films in which the cast worked together (the Tiny Times 小时代 quartet, 2013-15, with Yang Mi and Taiwan comedienne Xie Yilin 谢依霖, and American Dreams in China 中国合伙人, 2013, with Huang and Tong). The orginality of the writing is summed up by the closing caption: “Why is the Earth round? To let lost lovers meet again.” Right.

Some genuine chemistry between the leads might have made the whole thing tolerable, but both Huang and Yang Mi simply go through the motions, he flashing-eyed but detached, she squeaky-voiced and cute/sorrowful. As Zhao Mosheng’s assistant, Xie adds some wacky humour at the start but then disappears; a glammed-down Yang Ying is simply dull; and when Tong arrives on the scene, along with veteran Chen Chong 陈冲 [Joan Chen], the ship is already sinking. Hong Kong’s Zeng Zhiwei 曾志伟 [Eric Tsang] even pops up at that point, in an annoyingly unnecessary cameo.

The score by Wang Zongxian 王宗贤 [Nathan Wang] is by-the-numbers, and the copious use of the US song classic You Are My Sunshine underlines the whole enterprise’s second-hand feel. (The 2005 South Korean melodrama, You Are My Sunshine 너는 내 운명, also used the same song.) For the record, the novel’s TV drama version, broadcast in Jan 2015, was directed by Liu Junjie 刘俊杰, starred Zhong Hanliang 钟汉良 and Tang Yan 唐嫣, and is known in English as Silent Separation.

CREDITS

Presented by Le Vision Pictures (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Le Vision Pictures (Beijing) (CN).

Script: Yong Qun, Jia Jiawei, Mo Feile. Novel: Gu Man. Photography: Che Liangyi [Randy Che]. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai], Ding Yijue. Music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang]. Music supervision: Gao Xiaosong. Production design: Huang Wei [Rosalie Huang]. Costumes: He Huizhu. Sound: Chen Weiliang. Action: Fan Zhengjun. Special effects: Evan Carl Ricks. Executive direction: Wei Bo.

Cast: Huang Xiaoming (He Yichen), Yang Mi (Zhao Mosheng), Tong Dawei (Ying Hui), Yang Ying [Angelababy] (He Yimei, Yichen’s foster-sister), Chen Chong [Joan Chen] (Pei Fangmei, Zhao Mosheng’s stepmother), Xie Yilin (Gu Xinghong/Flower Fairy, Zhao Mosheng’s personal assistant), Huang Zitao (William, He Yichen’s personal assistant), He Sui (Xiao Xiao, Zhao Mosheng’s model friend), Ma Su (Miss Wen), Shen Tai (Shang Heng, He Yichen’s law partner), Liu Tianzuo (Yuan, He Yichen’s law partner), Hua Shao (Zhou, university lecturer), Zhang Shuai (Show magazine’s chief editor), Zeng Zhiwei [Eric Tsang] (Lin Xianghe), Yao Anlian (Zhao Qingyuan, Zhao Mosheng’s father), Sun Yizhou (supermarket manager), Kong Lianshun (supermarket security guard), Liu Xiaoxiao, Huang Xiaoge (Zhao Mosheng’s friends), Yang Kun (marriage registrar), Jiang Ziyan (nurse), Liu Yanchi (Pei Fangmei’s friend).

Release: China, 30 Apr 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 19 Sep 2015.)