The Wonderful Wedding

大喜临门

Taiwan/China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 100 mins.

Director: Huang Chaoliang 黄朝亮.

Rating: 7/10.

Light, entertaining CNY comedy centred on a cross-straits marriage and its cultural complications.

STORY

Gaoxiong, southern Taiwan, the present day. Li Jinshuang (Zhuge Liang), a district chief, life-long fisherman and proud cook, throws a neighbourhood lunch to celebrate the 80th birthday of his mother (Su Zhu). Also turning up at the lunch is his 32-year-old unmarried daughter, Li Shufen (Lin Xinru), a wedding-dress designer, who’s just discovered she’s pregnant by her boyfriend, Gao Fei (Li Dongxue), 29, a wealthy financial trader in Beijing. She keeps the news secret and, back in Beijing, goes with Gao Fei to meet his birth mother, Wang Yue (Dong Ping), to whom he’s devoted, to get her blessing on their marriage. Li Shufen and Gao Fei then fly to Gaoxiong to meet her family. Initially, Li Jinshuang won’t hear of his daughter marrying a Mainlander, but his mother and wife (Lin Meizhao) talk him round. He insists, however, on having a traditional Taiwan-style matchmaker, and Li Shufen convinces her unmarried best friend Qian Songyi (Lin Meixiu) to take the role. Li Jinshuang wants to meet Gao Fei’s family on Taiwan soil, so the young couple fly back to Beijing to break the news. Gao Fei has been distant from his father, Gao Shou (Kou Shixun), head of a construction company and descended from Manchu nobility, since the latter remarried; Gao Fei’s step-mother, Zhang Jing (Xia Yi), is a snob and her daughter (Hi Jon) a spoilt and self-obsessed Gen-Yer. Both families meet over lunch at Gaoxiong airport but Li Jinshuang and Zhang Jing start arguing over money and his insistence on following “Taiwan customs”. Finally, Li Jinshuang agrees on an auspicious date, and a traditional Taiwan engagement banquet is held in his neighbourhood courtyard, during which Li Jinshuang and Gao Shou bond. Immediately afterwards, however, relations between the two families break down again over money, with Zhang Jing and Li Jinshuang again arguing. And then Li Shufen reveals she’s three months’ pregnant. The couple’s wedding seems as far away as ever.

REVIEW

Cultural differences (and “unification”) between the Mainland and Taiwan form the basis for some remarkably light and entertaining comedy in The Wonderful Wedding 大喜临门, co-financed by Mainland major Huayi Brothers but made by and largely starring Taiwanese. Though the top-billed names are Taiwan’s Lin Xinru 林心如 [Ruby Lin] and China’s Li Dongxue 李东学 – both basically TV names – the real motor behind the whole thing is veteran Taiwan comic/TV host Zhuge Liang 猪哥亮, 69. After 15 years on the run for gambling debts, he’s been enjoying a major comeback during the past five years on the back of the boom in local comedies, his goofy, dialect-based humour and “toilet-seat” haircut still intact. Made after his hit gangster comedy David Loman 大尾鲈鳗 (2013), but before the feeble follow-up, David Loman 2 大尾鲈鳗2 (2016), Wedding is a perfect vehicle for Zhuge Liang’s brand of no-nonsense Hokkien comedy, here as a paterfamilias who objects to his daughter marrying a Mainlander and then tries to skim as much money as he can off his future in-laws.

In his fourth big-screen feature after Summer Times 夏天协奏曲 (2009), Love Is Sin 白天的星星 (2012) and Peace in Love 痞子遇到爱 (2014), TV producer-turned-director Huang Chaoliang 黄朝亮 – who was associate director to first-timer Qiu Likuan 邱瓈宽 on David Loman – keeps the ship sailing smoothly as the action yo-yos between Beijing and Gaoxiong, and relations between the potential in-laws are always within an inch of collapsing. The “P” word is never mentioned, but politics is ever-present beneath the surface as attitudes soften, then harden, and so on. When Zhuge Liang’s character is told his daughter wants to marry a Beijinger, he immediately says, “No way!”. When he’s then told the boy’s family is actually of Manchu descent, he starts to soften. And so on.

In recent years the rom-com has proved a convenient genre for airing cross-straits differences – at its best in the 2011 Great Wall My Love 追爱 (Taiwan girl meets Mainland boy in China) and 2013 Unpolitical Romance 水饺几两 (Mainland girl meets Taiwan boy in Taiwan). More light dramas than rom-coms, both Joyful Reunion 饮食、男女  好远又好近(2012) and My Elder Brother in Taiwan 酒是故乡浓 (2012) traded on the theme of families split by history, and like the previous two films were also directed by Taiwan-born or Taiwan-based directors – reflecting how, at least for audiences, the subject is a far bigger issue there than in the Mainland. In the past few years, Apart Together 团圆 (2010) is the only Mainland movie that’s seriously dealt with the subject.

The six-person screenplay, lead-written by Li Huijuan 李惠娟 (Republican-era TV drama Who Knows the Female of the Women 谁知女人心, 2010), is very even-handed, with the Taiwanese shown as trashy but warm-hearted and the Beijingers as courteous but emotionally screwed-up. This being a Zhuge Liang vehicle, there are copious linguistic jokes as he insists on speaking the Hokkien dialect and the other side needs an intermediary – two sides divided by a common language. But unlike, say, David Loman 2, Wedding isn’t a glorified TV sitcom with manfactured situations posing as a screenplay. Characters on both sides genuinely change and develop, along with events, and even the Beijing groom’s bitchy step-mother (played with spot-on nouvelle riche snobbery by China-born theatre actress Xia Yi 夏祎) is more than just a cardboard villainness. Binding the whole thing together, however, is the subtle chemistry between Zhuge Liang and fellow Taiwan TV veteran Kou Shixun 寇世勋, 61, as the groom’s faultlessly polite father. It’s their slow-burning relationship, grounded by Kou’s genial portrayal of an old-style northern Chinese businessman, and his observance of social protocols, that anchors all the other comic turns.

Lin, 40 playing 32, and Li, 33 playing 29, have an okay chemistry but are basically young(ish) bystanders to the oldies’ quarrels as the two sides work things out. In a break from all her recent horror movies, Lin is as relaxed as she can be in the daughter role and still looks eerily youthful in most shots; but neither she nor Li is given much real comedy or drama to chew on, and are mostly there for their looks. The best that can be said is that neither gets in the way of the entertainment as it bumps its way along to the expected last-minute, inclusive ending.

Both local hitmeister Zhu Yanping 朱延平 and David Loman‘s Qiu are credited as consultants on the film and, apart from the mass of Taiwan character comedians in the cast like Su Zhu 素珠 (as the granny of Lin’s character) and Lin Meixiu 林美秀 (as Lin’s BFF), actors Ren Xianqi 任贤齐 [Richie Ren] and Lan Zhenglong 蓝正龙 pop up in cameos; members of local girl group Weather Girls 天气女孩, whose Taiwan producer Chen Guohua 陈国华 helped provide the music, are also scattered here and there. The film was a major attraction during Chinese New Year 2015 in Taiwan, where it grossed NT$250 million, but it crashed and burned a few weeks later in China, managing only a puny RMB8 million.

CREDITS

Presented by Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Full Entertainment Investment (TW), Full Entertainment Marketing (TW), Super Entertainment & Media (TW). Produced by Full Entertainment Marketing (TW), Super Entertainment & Media (TW), Ideas Shine Film (TW).

Script: Li Huijuan, Zhou Yuanjiao, Xue Xiaoyun, Li Ruijie, Chen Longdi, Hao Xinying. Photography: Zhang Ximing, Wang Zhaozhong. Editing: Chen Bowen. Music: Chen Guohua, Cai Zhengxun. Theme song: Chen Guohua. Art direction: Wang Zhenping, Guo Xuan. Styling: Xu Xilin, Wang Fengru. Sound: Wu Bochun. Special effects: Wei Zongshe. Visual effects: Bao Zhengxun, Huang Minbin (Cheer Digiart VFX & Animation Studio). Advice: Zhu Yanping (chief), Qiu Likuan.

Cast: Lin Xinru [Ruby Lin] (Li Shufen), Li Dongxue (Gao Fei), Zhuge Liang (Li Jinshuang), Kou Shixun (Gao Shou, Gao Fei’s father), Dong Ping (Wang Yue, Gao Fei’s mother), Ren Xianqi [Richie Ren], Lin Junjie (themselves), Hua Shao (Li Dashao, Gao Fei’s friend), Jiu Kong [Lv Kongwei] (Xiaozhang, Zhang Jing’s elder brother/Gao Shou’s driver), Lan Zhenglong (customs officer), Lin Meixiu (Qian Songyi), Su Zhu (Li Jian Suzhu, Li Jinshuang’s mother), Lin Meizhao (Li Jian Meizhao, Li Jinshuang’s wife), Chen Muyi (Jian Daoqian, Jian Li Caihua’s husband), Wang Caihua (Jian Li Caihua, Li Jinshuang’s younger sister), Xia Yi (Zhang Jing, Gao Fei’s step-mother), Huang Xitian (An Liangwei’s father), Huang Tai’an (An Liangwei/Choutou An/Stinky), Chen Guohui (shop manager), Liu Yan (Auntie Zhao), Hi Jon [Wang Peiying] (Hailun/Helen, Gao Fei’s younger step-sister), Qiu Yifeng (Li Shufen’s male employee), Ria [Lin Wenjie], Mia [Zhuang Xinyi], Yumi [Lin Caiwei], Ice [Liu Daiyan] (Li Shufen’s employees), Mini [Lin Yihui], NueNue [Zhao Jingyi] (bridesmaids).

Release: Taiwan, 18 Feb 2015; China, 6 Mar 2015.