Beijing New York
北京 纽约
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.
Director: Li Xiaoyu 李晓雨 [Rain Li].
Rating: 4/10.
Lushly-shot romantic melodrama is torpedoed by an inept, vacuous script.
STORY
New York, 4 Jul 2007. Wealthy Beijing-based businessman Lan Yi (Liu Ye) arrives with his colleague Li Yan (Wang Xiao) to explore opportunities in the US. At a dinner with some Chinese friends, Lan Yi is congratulated on his forthcoming marriage to the daughter (Jiang Shuying) of the man (Zeng Jiang) who taught him everything about business. However, Lan Yi is thinking of his Chongqing childhood friend, Lin Moli (Lin Zhiling), whom he left at the altar 10 years earlier and who then moved to New York, where she’d always dreamed of becoming famous, first as a violinist and then as a ballet dancer. Lin Moli has begged off coming to the welcome dinner. She works in a small Chinese restaurant and at night sings in a backstreet bar, Club 606, as “the lady from Shanghai”. On a rooftop she bumps into investment banker Joe Heron (Richard de Klerk), with whom she celebrates 4 Jul with a bottle of champagne. Over a year later, in 2009, they meet again by chance when she delivers some takeaway to his flat. Following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and market crash, Joe Heron has left banking and is starting a new career as a photographer, preparing for his first exhibition. That autumn, in New York again on business, Lan Yi tracks down Lin Moli in Club 606 and apologises for abandoning her a decade earlier; she also works as a tour guide, and they spend time together, renewing their relationship. Lan Yi, however, has to suddenly return to Beijing, where his father-in-law is seriously ill; before leaving, they celebrate her 29th birthday and he buys Lin Moli a flat overlooking Central Park. Meanwhile, Joe Heron has fallen for Lin Moli; he persuaded her to model for him, but otherwise she keeps him at arm’s length. A year later, in 2010, Lin Moli attends the opening of Joe Heron’s first photography exhibition, at a gallery that’s owned by her (and Lan Yi). Joe Heron realises she loves another man, but Lin Moli is also frustrated by not hearing from Lan Yi for so long.
REVIEW
A will-they/won’t-they romantic drama about two childhood friends separated by their ambitions and cities, Beijing New York 北京 纽约 starts out as a supposed commentary on the world’s two economic giants but rapidly hits the rocks with its inept script. The debut feature of Li Xiaoyu 李晓雨 [Rain Li, aka Kathy Li] – a photographer in her early 30s who left China in her teens and subsequently worked as an assistant to d.p Christopher Doyle 杜可风 (on Paranoid Park, 2007; Showtime 用心跳, 2010) as well as a solo d.p. on several US indies – BNY consistently looks gorgeous, with visuals credited to Doyle, Li and Australia-born, Los Angeles-based Sion Michel (Hot Summer Days 全城热恋, 2010; The Unbearable Lightness of Inspector Fan 暴走神探, 2015). The film gets an extra point for its looks, but there’s simply nothing going on upstairs in Li’s vacuous screenplay.
Seemingly inspired by every chocolate-box TV movie set in the Big Apple, Li generates zero sympathy for her shallow characters as a writer, and as a director draws no natural screen chemistry from her cast. As one beautifully lit photo-spread follows another – neon-splashed streets, steel-and-glass compositions, rosy sunsets, autumnal up-state forests – the writing fails to measure up to all the visual lyricism.
As a part-time lounge singer-cum-waitress-cum-tour guide, actress-model Lin Zhiling 林志玲 (Red Cliff 赤壁, 2008; Love on Credit 幸福额度, 2011; Say Yes! 101次求婚, 2013) does a reasonable job of disguising her Taiwan accent in the Chinese dialogue but sounds stiff and squawky in English. Now in her early 40s (though playing a character in her late 20s), and with almost a decade on screen, she’s still rarely more than decorative, as well as being incomprehensible as a lounge-bar crooner. Actually three years younger but way more experienced, Mainland actor Liu Ye 刘烨 (Purple Butterfly 紫蝴蝶, 2003; The Underdog Knight 硬汉, 2008; Driverless 无人驾驶, 2010) tries very hard to give his lines some resonance but has no real chemistry with Lin to drive the main thread of long-parted, disappointed lovers.
In fact, it’s 31-year-old Canadian actor Richard de Klerk (also one of the film’s many production executives) who emerges least scathed from the wreckage, turning the sappy cliche of an American bewitched by Lin’s features into a half-respectable performance. He even manages to handle lines like “You know, if you focus hard enough, every sparkle [of a firework] is a dream that can come true” or “You’re tiny is this vast landscape; it’s almost like a surrealistic painting.”
Despite its twin-city title, BNY is way more NY than B, with the latter hardly characterised at all and certainly not an equal player in what is basically a US-set melodrama. (Just to confuse things further, the lead characters were supposedly born not in Beijing but in Chongqing, central China, which gets a few scenic shots in childhood flashbacks.) Beijing is mostly seen only in coolly-lit interiors, with the wife of Liu Ye’s character reservedly played by Jiang Shuying 江疏影 in just a few scenes. Hong Kong-based veteran Zeng Jiang 曾江 [Kenneth Tsang], fifth billed, gets one scene, dead in a hospital bed.
The soundtrack – songs and cocktail music – is as lush as the visuals. The film’s time scale is sometimes shakey – at one point, De Klerk’s character tells Lin’s that he first met her four years ago, when in fact it was three – hinting perhaps at extensive re-editing during postproduction. Also, d.p. Michel’s name is spelt wrongly on the main titles.
CREDITS
Presented by Shenzhen 21st Century Wink Film & Media [CN], Velvet Rain [CN].
Script: Li Xiaoyu [Rain Li]. Photography: Christopher Doyle, Li Xiaoyu [Rain Li], Sion Michel. Editing: Christopher Gill. Music: Paul Cantelon, Dan Sammartano, John Wolfington. Production design: Kostas Pappas. Art direction: Wang Yong. Costume design: Wang Xuelei, Zhang Bei. Styling: Hou Yuming. Sound: Huang Zheng, Zhang Jinyan, Zhang Jinhao. Visual effects: Wil Manning (Pixomondo).
Cast: Lin Zhiling (Lin Moli/Jasmine), Liu Ye (Lan Yi/Lenny), Richard de Klerk (Joe Heron), Jiang Shuying (Lan Yi’s wife), Wang Xiao (Li Yan), Zeng Jiang [Kenneth Tsang] (Lan Yi’s father-in-law), Chen Xingxu (teenage Lan Yi), Guan Xueying (teenage Lin Moli), Li Zhuozhao (young Lan Yi), Zhang Ke’er (young Lin Moli), Steve Rosen (Noam), Zhu Dapeng, Wu Yuekun (Lan Yi’s male dinner friends), Qiu Yijia (Sandy), James Habacker (Club 606 MC), David Call (Charles, Joe Heron’s banking colleague), Tom Treadwell (Goldberg), Tsutsui Azumi (Japanese guide), Clida Shaur (Christine), William Connell (Gary), Taryn Reif (Helen), Mario Brassard (Olivier), Liu Yafei (Lin Moli’s mother, voice).
Release: China, 6 Mar 2015.