Hanson and the Beast
二代妖精之今生有幸
China, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D, 110 mins.
Director: Xiao Yang 肖洋.
Rating: 6/10.
Odd-couple rom-com crossed with VFX fantasy doesn’t fulfil its potential in the second half.
STORY
Shanghai, Jul 2017. A wannabe actor and onetime film investor in two flops, Yuan Shuai (Feng Shaofeng) is in debt to moneylenders for RMB2 million and also has a mad father (Chen Xuming) in a psychiatric clinic who is about to be thrown out as Yuan Shuai hasn’t paid his medical bills. While working as an elephant keeper in Solidarity Zoo, mucking out the enclosure, he’s started unsuccessfully going on blind dates with wealthy women (Fan Tiantian, Chen Yumi) as a way out of his predicament. While waiting for one, Bai Ruyu (Ru Tian), in a coffee shop, he’s approached by a young woman, Bai Xianchu (Liu Yifei), who first claims to be Bai Ruyu but then confesses she’s a demon 妖怪/妖精. Their meeting is interrupted when he’s again harrassed by the moneylenders, led by Li Zhigang (Wang Shuangbao). Bai Xianchu later turns up at the elephant house and, to convince him she’s a demon, gets drunk and transforms herself into a giant Arctic Silver Fox. While chasing him, an alert goes out to the Shanghai branch of the demon world’s Bureau of Transfiguration 妖怪管理局 – whose job is to prevent any interaction between demons and humans, to keep the former’s bloodline pure – that Bai Xianchu, who previously went missing, has been spotted. Bureau operatives, led by Hong Sicong (Guo Jingfei), rescue Yuan Shuai and discipline the drunk Bai Xianchu. Later, however, Bai Xianchu turns up when Yuan Shuai is again being harrassed by the moneylenders, forcing them to flee. She tells him she wants to marry him and have a family; he rejects her as crazy. The bureau’s overall head, Yun Zhonghe (Li Guangjie), upraids Hong Sicong and his team for their incompetence and approaches Yuan Shuai to get his help in capturing Bai Xianchu, offering enough money to clear his debts. During a meeting with Bai Xianchu at a funfair, however, Yuan Shuai can’t bring himself to go through with the plan as he’s started to fall for her. As Yun Zhonghe continues to hunt her down, the pair finally hide out as extras on a film being made by Bai Xianchu’s best friend, international superstar Jia Bingbing (Jiao Junyan). Yuan Shuai is eventually forced to use his skills as an actor to rescue Bai Xianchu when she’s held captive in the bureau’s rehabilitation centre.
REVIEW
An odd-couple rom-com crossed with a VFX fantasy, Hanson and the Beast 二代妖精之今生有幸 is an initially entertaining riff that starts to lose its dramatic trajectory after the halfway mark. The second directorial outing by noted Mainland editor Xiao Yang 肖洋 – not to be confused with Mainland comic-turned-director Xiao Yang 肖央 (Old Boys: The Way of the Dragon 老男孩 猛龙过江, 2014) – it’s a very different kettle of fish from his previous The Ark of Mr. Chow 少年班 (2015), a youth movie centred on a group of student prodigies, though it has some of the same faults on the writing side. Partnering again with creative producer Chen Guofu 陈国富 through the latter’s CKF Pictures, Xiao, 38, who’s worked as a cutter for names like Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 and Chen Kexin 陈可辛 [Peter Chan], has aimed much higher this time but, along with co-writers Guo Yiwen 郭异雯 and Qiu Yan 邱岩, doesn’t really know how to develop his initial premise – a forbidden romance between a human and a demon – beyond a series of comic/action setpieces. Despite starring popular Mainland actors Feng Shaofeng 冯绍峰 and Liu Yifei 刘亦菲, it took only a so-so RMB292 million during the turn-of-the-year logjam.
The central romance between a male loser and a feisty female spirit has a little in common with the plot of Lost in London 伦敦魅影 (2013), a four-part micro-movie 微电影 (also co-written with Guo) that Xiao co-directed with Gim Cheol-yong 김철용 | 金哲勇 and starred Mainland actress Xiong Naijin 熊乃瑾 (who plays a cat demon in Hanson) and Hong Kong actor Feng Delun 冯德伦 [Stephen Fung]. In Hanson the loser is a wannabe actor who’s heavily in debt to moneylenders after investing in two vanity film productions, as well as having a mad father in a psychiatric clinic whose medical bills he can’t pay. Desperately going on blind dates with rich women, in between being harrassed by the moneylenders, he’s targeted by a female demon who wants to marry him and bear his children. The problems are that (a) he thinks she’s just crazy and (b) demons are forbidden to “interact” with humans in order to keep their bloodline pure.
It’s a nice set-up for an odd-couple rom-com, and both Feng and Liu (the latter much more spirited than usual) both give it their best, with a dry humour that satirises the fantasy genre as well as trading on it. The film starts in grand comic style with Shanghai comedienne Fan Tiantian 范湉湉, as one of the older blind dates, letting rip in Shanghainese when Feng’s loser delicately suggests their relationship should be without any of “that”; thereafter it bounces along nicely until Liu’s skittish demon pops up in his life and badgers him about having “that” with her. In a funny scene where Liu’s character gets blind drunk before morphing into a huge silver fox, the visual effects pile in with a frantic chase that’s joined by more demons who are after her for breaking the rules of the spirit world.
After plenty of action and com, the rom enters some 40 minutes in with a funfair sequence where Feng’s character starts to fall for Liu’s. The music by Wang Jingqi 王敬棋 and Liu Cong 刘聪 (Lost 百合, 2010) warmly underscores the moment and, after another comic/action interlude in which Liu’s demon works as a club-girl to earn some money, the two seal their attraction in a funny-tender bedroom scene. It’s thereon that the film starts to lose its sense of purpose, unable to develop the rom angle into a really convincing passion that’s strong enough to underpin the couple’s subsequent adventures as they’re hunted down by the demon police. A long sequence on a film set is more a glorified ad for Hengdian World Studios (a giant complex south of Shanghai) than a genuine plot driver, and the finale, set in the demon police’s rehab centre, is similarly scattergun, with Liu’s character largely sidelined rather than being really proactive.
With its subtext of how the demon world is deeply embedded in the human one (but in disguise), Hanson could have been a clever spin on the way in which the two “races” elide and co-exist – a more human riff on the theme of the Monster Hunt 捉妖记 movies. But with a script that can’t take the central relationhip to the next step, and becomes more interested just in the VFX, it’s a lost opportunity. Effects are okay but slicker in more intimate scenes than in large-scale action sequences.
The performances, when given a chance, compensate for many of the film’s flaws. Feng, who’s good at comedy when given the chance (the quack in Painted Skin: The Resurrection 画皮II, 2012), is fine as the loser-turned-hero, and Liu ditto in the first half as the pushy female demon. But from his first entrance around the half-hour mark, it’s Li Guangjie 李光洁, 36, as the ruthless head of the demon police who gives the film some dramatic spine. Though better known as a TV actor, Li, 36, has consistently been a commanding presence in his film roles – as a gung-ho pilot in Sky Fighters 歼十出击 (2011), triad power-broker in Line Walker: The Movie 使徒行者 (2016), and hard-jawed secret-bureau boss in Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe 九层妖塔 (2015) – and so he is here as the de facto villain.
Among other cast, Guo Jingfei 郭京飞 is okay as an epicene demon cop, though his backstory with Liu’s character is rockily developed, and Jiao Junyan 焦俊艳 (the internet babe in Goldbuster 妖铃铃, 2017) has some fun as “international superstar Jia Bingbing” who’s really a demon. (No prizes for guessing whom that joke is aimed at.)
The film’s Chinese title means “Second Generation Demon (Beauty): This Time Lucky”. The “Hanson” in the English title refers to the name of Feng’s character, Yuan Shuai 袁帅, which literally translates as “Handsome Yuan”.
CREDITS
Presented by CKF Pictures (CN), Beijing Culture (CN). Produced by CKF Pictures (CN).
Script: Xiao Yang, Guo Yiwen, Qiu Yan. Script advice: Zhang Jialu. Photography: Wang Boxue. Editing: Zhang Weili, Dai Zong, Liu Beixiang. Music: Wang Jingqi, Liu Cong. Production design: Lao A. Art direction: Guo Jing. Styling: Tan Xiaoshi. Sound: Tu Hao. Action: Choi Dong-weon, Gim Tai-gang. Visual effects: Sam Khorshid. Executive direction: Wang Jin.
Cast: Feng Shaofeng (Yuan Shuai/Hanson), Liu Yifei (Bai Xianchu), Li Guangjie (Yun Zhonghe, Bureau of Transfiguration overall head), Guo Jingfei (Hong Sicong, Bureau of Transfiguration No. 3 head), Jiao Junyan (Jia Bingbing), Xiong Naijin (cat demon), Zhang Zixian (Yanjing/Four Eyes, gang member), Zhu Jie (chief prison warder), Chen Yumi (Miss Chen, younger blind date), Kong Songjin (butterfly orchid demon), Zhao Weilin (mapi demon/Brown Nose), Mao Na (sexy young cat woman), Fan Tiantian (Miss Li, older blind date), Chen Xuming (Yuan Ainong, Yuan Shuai’s father)), Wang Shuangbao (Li Zhigang, gang head), Fu Guanming (Huang Mao/Yellow Hair, gang member), Wang Xiang (San’er, fat gang member), Mike Sui (film director), Liu Di (assistant film director), Dong Lei (long-legged cat woman), Jiang Chen (Shasha Jiang), Cui Mingyang (wolf-people leader), Ru Tian (Bai Ruyu, blind date).
Release: China, 29 Dec 2017.