Farewell Beijing
您好，北京
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.
Director: Cao Xixi 曹茜茜.
Rating: 5/10.
Interwoven stories of three Big City wannabes jogs along okay but is unoriginal and uninvolving.
STORY
Beijing, 11 Jan 2021, Monday. Already in debt, and after just hearing his main investor has withdrawn support, super-chip developer Li Mingqi (An Zehao) considers jumping off a building. Instead, the middle-aged executive asks an eccentric business acquaintance, Yu (Xu Zheng), for more help; but Yu says he can’t afford it. Li Mingqi tells a bar-owner friend, Ma (Shen Xiaohai), that he needs only RMB5 million, but gets no response. Delivery boy Liu Shun (Li Feiran) tells his girlfriend Wang Juan (Hong Jianing) that he finally has enough money for a downpayment on a flat in the suburbs. Meanwhile, Li Mingqi asks his old friend Zhou (Guo Jinglin) to repay him a loan of RMB3 million; but Zhou says he’s now bankrupt. Young street busker Yan Nan (Liu Ben), who came to Beijing against the wishes of his parents (Wang Xin, Li Yijuan) to pursue his dream of being a singer, is living on instant noodles and the kindness of his landlady’s daughter, Xiaocui (Guo Xinrui), who lets him skip the rent as she fancies him. Meanwhile, Li Mingqi’s wife, Xu Jianing (Cao Xixi), refuses to face up to the reality of her husband’s imminent ruin. The couple attend the funeral of the teacher who first introduced them to each other; at a lunch of classmates afterwards, Li Mingqi argues with the arrogant Meng Fankun (Fu Chengpeng), who’s now a successful businessman. Liu Shun has to rush home to Henan province to visit his ill mother (Wang Xinhua); when she appears to get better, he brings her to Beijing to show her the flat he’s about to buy, installing her in a hotel in the meantime. Yan Nan is approached in the street by music producer Tom Li (Li Shengze), who offers him a contract that involves Yan Nan paying RMB40,000 towards recording costs; Yan Nan borrows the money from a friend. Because of his mother’s medical bills, Liu Shun tells Wang Juan he has to delay the downpayment on the flat; Wang Juan is not happy. Meanwhile, Li Mingqi’s wife tells him to swallow his pride and ask Meng Fankun for a loan; and Yan Nan discovers he’s been scammed.
REVIEW
The stories of three wannabes in the Big City are intercut in Farewell Beijing 您好，北京, a writing/directing debut by erstwhile actress Cao Xixi 曹茜茜, 37, that jogs along okay but doesn’t score high for originality. Dedicated to “all those who struggle to achieve their dreams”, it has none of the grit or conviction that powered films on the same theme a decade or so ago, and now seems rather passé, even when compared with a ho-hum recent example like Tomorrow Will Be Fine 明天会好的 (2021). Shot in late 2020, and known for a while under the English title Hello Beijing (the meaning of the Chinese one), it took a so-what RMB50 million on Mainland release.
Xi’an-born Cao came out of nowhere, in her early 30s, as a villainess in the drug-busting online TVD Unbreakable Justice 正道无敌 (2020). Around the same time she was creative producer 监制 on rural drama Please Stay with Me 永远不会走, shot under the title 请你留下 by director An Zehao 安泽豪 in late 2019 but still unreleased. Largely a TV character actor, Lanzhou-born An, 43, went on to get top billing in Cao’s Farewell Beijing, as a computer-chip developer whose struggle to raise the money to complete his project forms the backbone to the whole movie. It’s his character’s story that kicks off the action as, on 11 Jan 2021, he hears his main investor has suddenly withdrawn, leaving him with a crucial RMB5 million finance gap that he tries to raise from one business acquaintance after another.
It’s a repetitive device that isn’t helped by the other two stories that are interwoven: a street busker who dreams of being a successful singer, only to fall for an obvious scam, and a delivery boy who’s finally saved enough for a downpayment on a flat with his girlfriend but then encounters family problems. Both stories are hardly original and not developed in any notable way, and their resolutions are either unbelievable (the chip developer’s story) or over-familiar (father-son conflict in the singer’s story). But one of the basic flaws in the script by Cao and the four other writers – of whom the most experienced is Wu Qian 吴谦 (Fat Buddies 胖子行动队, 2018) – is that, apart from the delivery boy who at one point returns to his hometown, there’s virtually nothing to contextualise the three main characters as so-called bĕipiāo 北漂, economic migrants to the country’s capital.
Within the script’s limitations, performances are okay without being especially engaging – emphasised when well-known comedian/director Xu Zheng 徐峥 briefly beefs things up with a cameo as an eccentric investor and then disappears. Cao gives herself a big scene an hour or so in as the chip developer’s wife who finally wakes up to her husband’s dilemma; but her character remains an afterthought. Technically the production is smooth, from the editing by Hong Kong’s Kuang Zhiliang 邝志良 to the unadorned widescreen photography of wintry Beijing by Mainland indie d.p. He Ming 何明. The music score, by the pseudonymous Yaya 丫丫 and Xiaowai 小外 [aka Yu Hai 于海], is over-obvious, either laying on sentiment or pointing up obvious comedy.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Phanton Picture (CN). Produced by Beijing Phantom Picture (CN), Tengyu Shidai (Beijing) Pictures (CN).
Script: Cao Xixi, Wu Qian, Wang Jianqiu, Wang Lin, Ren Weilong. Photography: He Ming. Editing: Kuang Zhiliang. Music: Yaya, Xiaowai [Yu Hai]. Art direction: Pang Chao. Styling: Luan Xueting. Sound: Wei Wei, Liao Jiawen. Visual effects: Huang Haoshen. Executive direction: Du Shufeng.
Cast: An Zehao (Li Mingqi), Liu Ben (Yan Nan), Li Feiran (Liu Shun), Guo Jinglin (Zhou, Li Mingqi’s bankrupt friend), Hai Yitian (Peng, VIP at nightclub), Wang Xin (Yan Nan’s father), Fu Chengpeng (Meng Fankun), Xu Zheng (Yu, eccentric investor), Zhang Xilin (Niu), Wang Qianhua (office cleaner), Bai Yongcheng (Tony Lee, Wang Juan’s boss), Sun Xun (guitar-shop owner), Cao Xixi (Xu Jianing, Li Mingqi’s wife), Shen Xiaohai (Ma, Li Mingqi’s bar-owner friend), Jiang Ping (Jiang, pancake seller), Li Shengze (Tom Li), Hong Jianing (Wang Juan, Liu Shun’s girlfriend), Wang Xinhua (Liu Shun’s mother), Guo Xinrui (Xiaocui, daughter of Yan Nan’s landlady), Li Yijuan (Yan Nan’s mother), Li Keru (Xiaoli, Wang Juan’s work colleague), Tang Duo’er (Duoduo, flyposter), Zhang Zhe (Dacheng), Zhang Xiaomeng (Dudu, Li Mingqi’s daughter).
Premiere: New Zealand Asia Pacific Film Festival, Auckland, Nov 2021 (online).
Release: China, 18 Nov 2022.