The Reunions
吉祥如意
China, colour, 2020, 2.35:1, 78 mins.
Director: Da Peng 大鹏 [Dong Chengpeng 董成鹏].
Rating: 6/10.
Kind-of-documentary centred on a CNY reunion by comic Da Peng’s family is watchable but lacks a strong point.
STORY
Oak Tree village, Jilin province, northeast China. A Reunion 吉祥. In Jan 2017, for the first time in 10 years, Wang Qingli (Liu Lu), 36, visits her father Wang Jixiang, 61, and his family to celebrate Chinese New Year. No. 3 in his family, and a former head of security at Liaohe oil field, he started suffering from dementia in the mid-1990s and returned to his home village, where he was taken in by no. 2 brother Wang Jiwu and his wife, 63-year-old Wang Xiujuan. Wang Jixiang exists on an exclusive diet of steamed buns, and has no memory of anyone, least of all his daughter. When his mother arrives in the village, in a coma and on a stretcher, the family assembles to fulfil tradition at Chinese New Year. No. 1 brother Wang Jiwen arrives, as well as no. 4 Wang Jigui, and along with their sister Ding Shumei and her husband Dong Zhiyang they all decide what to do about Wang Jixiang. Wang Qingli, who had gone to live with her mother when her parents divorced, is also present at the discussions, as her father had doted over her earlier in life before he became ill. The family’s mother finally passes away and her funeral is held two days before Chinese New Year. Wang Qingli is urged by Wang Jiwen not to send her father to a mental hospital, as he has “only lost his memory”, not gone mad; the family has a duty to take care of him, as he was good to all his brothers before he became ill. At dinner, the discussion gets heated when Wang Jiwu says he and his wife have done their duty for 20 years and deserve some relief. Wang Qingli breaks down and starts crying. Ding Shumei says the family is unlikely ever to gather again in such a way now that their mother, who held them all together, has died. A Final Reunion 如意. At a screening of the previous short film, director Da Peng [Dong Chengpeng], the son of Dong Zhiyang and Ding Shumei, is speechless when asked why, as a commercially successful director of comedies, he chose to make such a film. The segment flashbacks to Da Peng and his crew making the pseudo-documentary, with actress Liu Lu playing Wang Qingli and the real Wang Qingli on set to advise her. He starts to wonder whether his decision to make the film, to return to the village after so long, played a part in the decline of his grandmother’s health or whether she was already fatally ill.
REVIEW
Mainland comic Da Peng 大鹏, aka Dong Chengpeng 董成鹏, 39, takes on the documentary form itself – with rather mystifying results – in The Reunions 吉祥如意, in which the internet celebrity-turned-mainstream comedian uses his own family as subject matter. His third outing as a feature director, following superhero parody Jianbing Man 煎饼侠 (2015) and character comedy City of Rock 缝纫机乐队 (2017), it’s actually an expansion of his earlier short A Final Reunion 吉祥 (2018), with a shortish section added at the end, rather than being a new feature film in its own right. Despite dealing with serious matters, it’s often flecked with Da Peng’s typically sly/dry humour; but though never boring – especially given its brief running time – it’s more a clever conceit than anything more substantial. Set during CNY and released during the 2021 Spring Festival, it nevertheless took a very respectable RMB13.6 million, given the genre – presumably on the strength of Da Peng’s name.
The 48-minute A Final Reunion (see poster, left) sprung from an idea by Da Peng to gather the elders of his mother’s family in their home village, Oak Tree 柞树村, in Jilin province, which he hadn’t visited in years. The “plot” was seen from the point-of-view of a cousin, Wang Qingli – portrayed by actress Liu Lu 刘陆 (Give Me a Ride 乘客, 2019; The Fourth Wall 第四面墙, 2019) – who was visiting her father Wang Jixiang for the first time in 10 years over the Spring Festival period (Jan 2017) on the occasion of the visit of her seriously ill grandmother. Wang Jixiang, now suffering from a form of dementia, no longer remembers his daughter, and simply walks round reciting the names of his three brothers; Wang Qingli’s aunt Ding Shumei (Da Peng’s mother) is also there for the family reunion, along with her husband Dong Zhiyang (Da Peng’s father). When the grandmother (already in a coma) suddenly dies, the family uses the occasion of its reunion to try to sort out what to do with Wang Jixiang in the future.
A Final Reunion contained interviews with some of the family as well as scenes like a long dinner conversation which gets very emotional. Its title, 吉祥, was not only the given name of Wang Jixiang but also an adjective meaning “luck” or “auspicious”, often used during Chinese New Year. For The Reunions Da Peng has retained the original’s Chinese title for the first segment but changed the English one to A Reunion. The second segment containing the extra material has the Chinese title 如意, meaning “as you wish” (another common CNY phrase), and the English one A Final Reunion. The Chinese title for the whole film simply combines the two Chinese ones.
The segment now called A Final Reunion is actually a misnomer: no new reunion is shown. It simply shows the germination in Beijing of the idea for the film, plus behind-the-scenes material showing Da Peng and his crew, as well as the real Wang Qingli, capped by some home video footage of Da Peng last visiting the village back in 2008. There’s a lot of walking around in the snow, and occasional thoughts by the director as to whether or not the film precipitated his grandmother’s death, but otherwise the segment only scrapes the surface of whether Da Peng’s idea to involve his family was a good one or not. An aunt comments that the family is all there “because of your film” and that his grandmother’s death “will make a good ending for your film”, but the most trenchant moment is actually when Da Peng, asked after a screening of the original short why he made it, is suddenly lost for words.
Technical credits, with d.p. Gao Hu 高虎 (Jianbing Man; City of Rock) shooting the first segment and Wang Shiqing 汪士卿 (Always 爱未央, 2013) the second, are functional, with a documentary look in the snow and cold of northeast China. The whole film is tightly edited by the experienced Kong Jinlei 孔劲蕾, with the extra material totalling only 20 minutes or so. As the sole professional, Liu (a dancer-turned-actress from Shaanxi, then in her mid-30s) is fine as Wang Jixiang’s daughter, who still feels guilty for not visiting her dad for so long and gets very upset by the family’s dinner-table bickering.
CREDITS
Presented by The City Film (CN), Shanghai Ruyi Film & TV Production (CN), Beijing Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Beijing Shijian Wanxiang Culture Media (CN), Eagle Media (CN). Produced by The City Film (CN), Shanghai Ruyi Film & TV Production (CN).
Script: uncredited. Photography: Gao Hu (A Reunion), Wang Shiqing (A Final Reunion). Editing: Kong Jinlei, Da Peng [Dong Chengpeng], Ren Zhenhui. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Liu Guanlin. Styling: Xie Yuanchun. Sound: Dong Xu, Zhang Jia. Artistic advice: Wang Hongwei. Executive direction: Ma Daming.
Cast: Wang Jixiang, Da Peng [Dong Chengpeng] (themselves), Liu Lu (Wang Qingli; herself), Wang Qingli, Wang Jiwen, Wang Jiwu, Wang Jixiang, Wang Jigui, Ding Shumei, Dong Zhiyang, Wang Juan, Chen Jindong (themselves).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Competition), 26 Jul 2020.
Release: China, 29 Jan 2021.