Love O2O

微微一笑很倾城

China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 102 mins.

Director: Zhao Tianyu 赵天宇.

Rating: 7/10.

University-set rom-com between two online gamers is cleverly balanced and slides down a treat.

STORY

Huadong University (aka East China Normal University), Shanghai, Sep 2007. Bei Weiwei (Angelababy) is a second-year student in Computer Science and, under her gaming avatar of swordswoman Luwei Weiwei, is ranked seventh best player in the multi-player online role-playing game 梦游江湖 (“Sleepwalking the Martial Arts World”) set in ancient Chang’an. The top player on the whole server is fourth-year Computer Science student Xiao Nai (Jing Boran), who uses the avatar of swordsman Yixiao Naihe and is also a college basketball star idolised by many female students, including college beauty Meng Yiran (Li Qin). Like her roommates Erxi (Tan Songyun), Sisi (Cheng Yi) and Xiaoling (Wu Qian), Bei Weiwei dotes over Xiao Nai – but for his brilliant maths brain. After Luwei Weiwei divorces her game husband Zhenshui Wuxiang, Yixiao Naihe proposes to her and she accepts, not knowing who is behind the avatar but reckoning they would make an unbeatable gaming team. After a highly romantic online wedding between the two martial artists, Bei Weiwei even starts to fall for the character of Yixiao Naihe. When Journalism student Cao Guang (Bai Yu), who’d earlier posted a story suggesting she had a sugar daddy, tries to court her, she blurts out that Xiao Nai is her secret love – a remark that Xiao Nai hears as he passes by. In the game, after Zhenshui Wuxiang badmouths Luwei Weiwei, Yixiao Naihe jumps to her defence, challenging Zhenshui Wuxiang to a duel. He wins, and Zhenshui Wuxiang is exposed as the avatar of Cao Guang. Bei Weiwei falls for the character of Yixiao Naihe even more. Determined to find out who is behind the avatar, Bei Weiwei suggests a meeting. After several attempts, they finally meet in the flesh, and Xiao Nai shows her the plans for the game that he and his friends – Yu Banshan (Li Xian), Qiu Yonghou (Li Jiuxiao) and Hao Mei (Wang Zijie) – are hoping to sell to a big company.

REVIEW

The borderline between real life and the online gaming world gets romantically blurred in Love O2O 微微一笑很倾城, an adaptation of a 2009 novel by Jiangsu-born novelist Gu Man 顾漫 that’s beautifully packaged, has leading roles for Yang Ying 杨颖 [Angelababy] and Jing Boran 井柏然 that fit them like a glove, and is even mildly moving by the end. Way better than the previous film version of a Gu novel – You Are My Sunshine 何以笙箫默 (2015), in which Yang coincidentally had a supporting role – and easily the best film so far by uneven director Zhao Tianyu 赵天宇 (Deadly Delicious 双食记, 2008; The Law of Attraction 万有引力, 2011; Zhongkui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal 钟馗伏魔  雪妖魔灵, 2015), Love O2O slides down a treat while being careful not to over-critique the online habits of its target audience. The film managed to grab a very solid RMB275 million before a TV-drama version of the same novel started airing 10 days later.

Both Yang and Jing are variable actors who need the right parts and a simpatico cast. Here, they not only look comfortable together – with Jing, as in their earlier teamings, Hot Summer Days 全城热恋  热辣辣 (2010) and Love in Space 全球热恋 (2011), content to let Yang bounce around cutely while he quietly smoulders – but are also cast in roles that fit their limited ranges. As two ace on-line gamers who fall first for each other’s avatars and then for the person behind them, both actors are equally good in their own ways: Jing as the super-assured Computer Science student who’s No. 1 gamer on the server, and Yang as the younger wannabe who finds her gaming passion bleeding into her real life.

Like the TV-drama version, which naturally sticks more closely to the novel, the screenplay by Gu, Pan Yu 潘彧 (Nezha 少女哪吒, 2014; Run for Love 奔爱, 2016) and Shen Feixian 沈飞弦 (one of the TVD writers) flip-flops between the on-line game in which the two leads play a swordswoman and swordsman, and their everyday life in a Shanghai university. (When they ever do any real studying is left vague.) The more romantic gaming scenes are often staged in an idealised style, with bright, poster-colour CGI, though swordplay scenes have a conventional backlot look. From the start, the film deliberately blurs the boundaries between the gaming world and the real one, as the characters themselves see the two as complementary rather than separate. As Yang’s character starts to fall for her online partner, the script avoids any criticism of the way in which gaming can take over young people’s lives: here, it’s simply a romantic device to get Yang and Jing together. For all its jazzy visuals and gaming jargon, Love O2O is basically a university rom-com.

Yang’s character gets several key moments the 27-year-old actress handles well: publicly ticking off another student for libelling her online (a scene that is almost thrown away in the TVD version), modestly going on her first “date” on the back of a bicycle, and blurting out her “secret love” for Jing’s character in order to get rid of an unwanted suitor. Despite her diminutive stature, Yang is also made to look good as a swordswoman in the gaming scenes. Jing, also 27, looks effortlessly commanding as an idealised swordsman but doesn’t get any memorable moments like Yang. However, the two actors have such a strong underlying chemistry that it doesn’t matter. Other roles are basically background noise, with the conventional comedy chorus of both sexes’ best friends, plus a college beauty and a college dork.

The slick packaging shows the clear fingerprints of producer Zhang Yibai 张一白, with whom Zhao has worked in the past (on his debut, Deadly Delicious, and as a writer on Zhang’s Lost Indulgence 秘岸, 2008). Widescreen photography by Li Bingqiang 李炳强, who shot Zhang’s romantic drama Fleet of Time 勿勿那年 (2014) is sunny and succulent throughout, while the score by American Chinese composer Wang Zongxian 王宗贤 [Nathan Wang] points up the romance in delicate style. Editing by Hong Kong’s Kuang Zhiliang 邝志良 is smooth enough but still can’t disguise the fact that the final 20 minutes are unnecessarily strung out.