Broadcasting Girl
我的播音系女友
China, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 96 mins.
Directors: Cheng Zhonghao 程中豪, Wang Kai 王凯.
Rating: 5/10.
Modest but interesting college rom-com, with strong leads, a sparky tone and occasional grace-notes.
STORY
Shanghai, the present day, winter. At an unnamed communications university, drama student Bai Liang (Wang Dongcheng) wins a draw among his goofy roommates – fattie Xu (Xu Xiaolong), girly Yi (Gao Haoyuan) and rakish Fa (Jiang Xueming) – to play a joke on snooty beauty Zhang Liaoliao (Qi Wei), a student of broadcast presenting. Zhang responds in kind; but later, Bai Liang saves her from some bullies and takes her to a hotel to recover. She later reports him for rape, blackening his name at the college, even though nothing happened between them. After more aggro between the two of them, she slaps his face in public and he demands revenge. He and his roommates try to get her drunk one evening but she ends up drinking them under the table. Bai Liang and Zhang Liaoliao finally start dating when she realises he’s basically a good guy, but then her jealous ex-boyfriend, Yang Chen (Zhong Kai), challenges Bai Liang to a fight. Yang Chen deliberately loses to get Zhang Liaoliao’s sympathy – a plan that misfires. During the winter vacation, she invites Bai Liang to go on a trip with her to nearby Kunshan, without telling her well-off but possessive parents where she’s going. All goes well until Zhang Liaoliao suddenly falls ill.
REVIEW
A modest but interesting debut by the duo of producer/director Cheng Zhonghao 程中豪 and d.p./director Wang Kai 王凯, college rom-com Broadcasting Girl 我的播音系女友 rises above its familiar content thanks to a sparky cast led by actor-singers Wang Dongcheng 汪东城 and Qi Wei 戚薇 plus occasional grace-notes on the genre. Reminiscent in its odd-couple theme, Chinese title (“My Broadcasting Faculty Girlfriend”) and even poster art of South Korean rom-coms like My Sassy Girl 엽기적인 그녀 (2001) – the pair’s next movie, Love Studio 同城邂逅 (2016) was actually a remake of the hit Cyrano Agency 시라노; 연애조작단 (2010) – it remains by far the most commercially successful of their four released features to date, despite a small hawl of RMB13 million, though their latest film, Fireworks 毕业的我们 (2019), remains their best.
The script, by Wang Kai, Li Zhishuai 李志帅 (Love Studio) and Ma Xiaohui 马晓辉, is based on a 2011 novel of the same title by Fang Shijie 方世杰 (aka Fang Jie 方杰), known variously in English as My Broadcasting Girlfriends and My Girlfriend from Broadcasting Department (see cover, left). Though the book was set at Beijing’s Communication University of China, with the two lead characters a boy from Nanjing and a girl from Chongqing, the script’s relocation to Shanghai in winter and its lack of stress on their backgrounds work equally well, and the film follows the original’s plot fairly closely until the hour mark. Significantly – given script weaknesses in the duo’s subsequent Love Studio and We Graduate 我们毕业啦 (2016) – it’s then that it starts to run out of steam as the writers diverge from the novel, ditching the boy’s involvement with other girls back home and inventing a trip the two leads take together amid much talk of their dreams for the future. However, a final rally in the coda, set three years later, ends things on a satisfyingly unusual note.
Taiwan’s Wang Dongcheng, then a boyish-looking 32, and Qi, 29, mostly from TV, show fine comic chemistry as the uppity student from the drama faculty and the waspish rich kid from the broadcast-presenting faculty, with their off-on romance of two seeming opposites fuelling most of the plot. Much less mumblecore than in horror The Purple House 紫宅 (2011) and rom-com My Boyfriends 我的男男男男朋友 (2013), the heavily-accented Taiwan boybander evinces an uncomplicated charm that fits well with Mainlander Qi’s more mature vibe, with her unusually dark voice and air of mystery (the swordswoman-cum-assassin in Coming Back 回马枪, 2011; the conniving secretary in Be a Rich Man 做次有钱人, 2012).
The pair carry the movie – at its best in the comic moments – with good support from a chorus of the boy’s goofy roommates and the girl’s BFF, all standard characters for the genre but zestily played. Production values are modest but well appointed, with clean, unshowy photography by Wang Kai of locations in and around Shanghai and a simple, piano-dominated score to edge things along.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Guang’er Shizhi Media (CN), Shanghai Haoying Media (CN), Nantong Qianxun Culture Communication (CN), Shanghai Dingji Cultural Communication (CN), Cayie Movie & Video Comunication (CN).
Script: Wang Kai, Li Zhishuai, Ma Xiaohui. Novel: Fang Shijie. Photography: Wang Kai. Editing: Li Lu. Music: Ma Jun, Zhang Xiaosong. Song (“Winter Tree”): Zhang Jing. Art direction: Feng Ronggao. Costumes: Wang Ying. Styling: Qi Xin. Sound: Yang Jie, Yang Ming. Executive direction: Xu Jiahui, Zhang Jiajun.
Cast: Wang Dongcheng (Bai Liang), Qi Wei (Zhang Liaoliao), Qiu Ye (Zhang Liaoliao’s best friend), Zhong Kai (Yang Chen), Jiang Xueming (Fa), Gao Haoyuan (Yi), Xu Xiaolong (Xu Pangzi/Fattie), Ren Haoming (doctor), Yang Yang (policeman), Hei Ge (Zhang Liaoliao’s father), Zhao Wei (stage boss), Jin Jie (manager), Zhang Ningjie (clothes-shop owner), Chen Jiugang (street peddler), Hai Qing (presenter), Li Zixuan (actor in play), Chen Yue (actress in play), He Zhiyong (boss), Qin Liang (student-union head), Yang Lu (thug).
Release: China, 20 May 2014.