Lost in Love
如影随心
China, 2019, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Huo Jianqi 霍建起.
Rating: 4/10.
Lushly-packaged romantic drama is pure colour-supplement fluff, devoid of emotional content.
STORY
Paris, the present day. It’s love at first sight when jobbing violinist Lu Song (Chen Xiao) and interior designer Wen Ying (Du Juan), daughter of a painter, meet by the River Seine. One year later, in Beijing, they get engaged and agree to marry in September. Both are in their 30s and now divorcees: her ex, Zheng Ke (Hua Shao), is a surgeon; his ex, Liu Juan (Ma Su), is a Chinese teacher in a private school with whom he has a young son, Pengpeng, aged two. Still upset by their divorce, Liu Juan starts posting articles on the internet – An Abandoned Woman’s Diary 弃妇日记 – about her and Lu Song’s marriage. Wen Ying starts reading them and begins to have doubts about her relationship with Lu Song. As the date of their planned marriage approaches, both become haunted by Liu Juan’s posts, which are also read by their friends and colleagues. It becomes clear that Liu Juan hasn’t given up hoping to get Lu Song back. And then Wen Ying learns she’s pregnant.
REVIEW
A lushly-packaged romantic drama that’s drenched in western cultural references from painting to classical music, Lost in Love 如影随心 finds veteran Mainland director Huo Jianqi 霍建起, 61, turning in a virtual self-parody of the style he’s built up during the past few years – high on gloss but low on real drama and emotional content. Graced by a typically floaty performance from willowy actress-model Du Juan 杜鹃, and given only a smidgeon of conviction by her male co-star Chen Xiao 陈晓, this slice of colour-supplement film-making promises to be a gradual deconstruction of an ideal love affaire but ends up as extravagent fluff that goes completely o.t.t. in the final furlong and – worse – doesn’t seem remotely phased by its own ridiculousness. Even by his own standards, Huo hasn’t been this far off the scale since the utterly fanciful A Love of Blueness 蓝色爱情 (2000).
It’s all a long way from the early days of Huo’s career, which produced his best three movies: Postmen in the Mountains 那人那山那狗 (1998), Life Show 生活秀 (2002) – still his best film – and peasant drama Nuan 暖 (2003). Huo’s last half-decent movie was period political biopic The Seal of Love 秋之白华 (2011); since then, and with no scriptwriting input from his wife Su Xiaowei 苏小卫 (aka Si Wu 思芜) since Falling Flowers 萧红 (2012), he’s drifted into making gorgeous looking dramas – playing on his background in painting and fine arts – that lack any kind of credibility at a human level (Love in the 1980s 1980年代的爱情, 2015; Xuan Zang 大唐玄奘, 2016). Huo’s films have rarely garnered more than a couple of million RMB at the Mainland box-office – on a par with quickie horrors – but he somehow continues to make prestige-looking movies. His last film, costume Buddhist drama Xuan Zang starring popular pin-up Huang Xiaoming 黄晓明, broke the mould by taking RMB33 million – still a tiny amount by today’s standards – but the superficially more commercial Lost didn’t even manage that (RMB 24 million).
Supposedly based on a work by An Dun 安顿 – pen name of Beijing journalist-editor Zhang Jieying 张杰英 – the film is light-years away from her normal orbit of charting the emotional lives of average Mainlanders via interviews. In an idealised, touristy Paris two walking, talking cliches – a jobbing, struggling violinist (Chen) and a painter’s daughter-turned-interior designer (Du) – fall in love after arguing over an Edith Piaf album at a Seine-side flea-market. A year later, back in Beijing, they become engaged; but both are now recent divorcees and the violinist’s ex is still wounded by being betrayed. In revenge she starts writing a blog (An Abandoned Woman’s Diary 弃妇日记) about their marriage. Really.
Stretched out with lots of flashbacks, montages that slip into slo-mo at the drop of a hat, and buckets of referential art direction, the script basically goes round in circles for over an hour as the woman starts to question the relationship and the man keeps reassuring her he’s really in love. The couple live in an artistically decorated loft apartment – in a hardly recognisable, high-fashion Beijing – and the emotional temperature remains resolutely level as the production design by Zhang Shiming 张世明 and widescreen photography by Zhao Lei 赵镭 take over.
Though slightly less icy than usual, 36-year-old Du (New York New York 纽约纽约, 2016) glides through the picture like a fashion model, staring into the middle distance and endlessly worrying, while saddled with lines like “Wages are like women’s periods: they only come once a month” and “That night we cuddled together like two thermometers”. Thirty-one-year-old Chen (The Palace 宫 锁沉香, 2013) has unkempt long hair (he’s a struggling musician) and hasn’t even been coached in perfunctory bowing technique when placed among professional violinists; he’s a more engaging actor than Du but only within the script’s narrow limits. As the vengeful ex-wife, busy TV/film actress Ma Su 马苏, 38, is equally constrained by the screenplay’s lack of nuance and just simmers resentfully; even Taiwan comedienne Xie Yilin 谢依霖 hardly manages to lighten the tone as a jokey employee. In one of the weirdest roles, Taiwan songstress Lin Jiayi 林佳仪 keeps popping up at awkward moments as the heroine’s old university pal, despite being almost a decade older.
The Chinese title roughly means “Following one’s inclinations like a shadow” but also plays on a similar sounding phrase that describes two inseparable people. The title of An’s work is 曾经的外遇永远的同谋 (literally, “Once Lovers, Forever Accomplices”). In a jaw-dropping final scene, the heroine even meets An (played by actress Ke Lan 柯蓝) and says how much she admires her work.
CREDITS
Presented by Cosmic Bliss Culture & Media (Beijing) (CN), Wanda Film Media (CN).
Script: Huo Jianqi. Script planning: Shi Hang, Jie Chen, Jiang Yalin, Lu Nian’an. Original work: An Dun. Photography: Zhao Lei. Editing: Kuang Zhiliang, Zhang Weili. Music: Na Ying, Xu Ruyun, Chen Yongtong, Lin Jiaqian. Music direction: Chen Jianqi. Art direction: Zhang Shiming. Styling: He Qian. Sound: Chao Jun. Visual effects: Cai Kuiguang.
Cast: Chen Xiao (Lu Song), Du Juan (Wen Ying), Wang Jia (Dongdong), Ma Su (Liu Juan), Hua Shao (Zheng Ke), Xie Yilin (Xiaonan), Wu Muye (pianist), Wei Song (opera singer), Xue Wei (violinist), Lin Jiayi (Wang Yue), Guan Xiaotong (Luoli), Ke Lan (An Dun), Feng Bo (obstetrician), Gao Xiaopan (bridegroom), Qin Kai, He Zi (clients at Wen Ying’s business), Sun Yuhan (Wang Yue’s nephew), Pang Yixin (Guan Yanyan, Wang Yue’s cousin), Zhao Zhen (Bella, violinist), Yang Xinghai, Liu Jun, Xie Yuanpeng, Hou Jiawei, Liang Jingyue.
Release: China, 19 Apr 2019.