Fighting Men of China
中国合伙人2
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 121 mins.
Director: Liu Yadang 刘亚当.
Rating: 7/10.
Fine ensemble chemistry drives a buddy movie set in the early period of computers and the internet.
STORY
Beijing, 1999. US-born Chinese Xu Shunzhi, aka Shawn (Wang Jia), gets a job with US accounting firm Arthur Andersen to go to China for three months to join the team auditing Hongying Group prior to its IPO in the US. (Hongying Group’s Chu Zhenhui [Zhao Lixin] had invented the Hongzhong operating system, built on the Linux system, which had then been crushed in China by Microsoft’s OS, which was factory pre-installed on 50% of Hongying Group’s computers, giving Microsoft the right to sue Hongying over the risk of users installing pirated operating systems.) Xu Shunzhi needs Chu Zhenhui to sign an anti-litigation document so that the IPO can go ahead. However, with his research department under threat, Chu Zhenhui is in no mood to sign any document and the office is in chaos. Later, Xu Shunzhi manages to bond with Chu Zhenhui and his close colleague Qin Lei (Ling Xiaosu) in a disco bar, where Chu Zhenhui clumsily tries to pick up a woman (Zhang Yezi). On another night they all attend a party of industry high-flyers who talk of the future of the internet and its possibilities. (It was six years earlier when Hongying Group had set up the Hongzhong Operating System Development Department, and given Chu Zhenhui and Qin Lei an office of their own.) Hongying Group’s senior executives vote to close down their own OS department and buy Microsoft’s OS for all their computers. His work done, Xu Shunzhi returns to Shanghai. In Beijing, Chu Zhenhui applies for a job as a technical supervisor at a company and in the process bumps into former girlfriend Liu Ke (Dong Qi). (The two of them once lived together, and when she decided to go abroad he didn’t stop her.) Meanwhile, Xu Shunzhi leaves Arthur Andersen and joins a capital-investment company set up in Shanghai by his former boss Chen Haoda (Kou Shixun). In Beijing, Chu Zhenhui and Qin Lei try to start an e-commerce business, www.feifan.com 非凡网, specialising in DVDs, but can’t find any investors. Xu Shunzhi asks to be transferred to Beijing to be with his friends, and then convinces Chen Haoda to invest RMB10 million in Feifan. Chen Haoda’s condition is that Feifan knocks out of the market a rival e-commerce business, Zhongguancun Electronics, started by onetime Hongying colleague Miao Xiaofeng (Yang Yi). By 2005 Feifan is a huge success and in 2006 Chu Zhenhui is in a position to buy Zhongguancun and go public. Chen Haoda feels that, to realise his clients’ investment, Feifan should be bought by US e-commerce company Viki; Chu Zhenhui refuses, and his gamble pays off. But in 2008 Feifan hits trouble when one of its suppliers is caught selling fake goods. The whole pack of cards seems set to collapse and Chu Zhenhui even falls out with loyal friends.
REVIEW
Apart from an English title that makes it sound like a war drama from August First Film Studio, there’s not much wrong with Fighting Men of China 中国合伙人2, an entertainingly played canter through the early days of computers and the internet from a Mainland perspective. Smoothly directed and well cast, with excellent chemistry between the three leads as well as the supporting cast, it’s the first theatrical feature by Liu Yadang 刘亚当, who previously made the shorts Untie for Love 爱情绑匪团 (2011, co-directed with Shen Qinyuan 沈沁源) and The Past Like Rippling 涟漪往事 (2013) but is mainly known for his impressive online feature Master of Disguise 伪装大师 (2017), a lightly comic conmen drama that also boasted fine ensemble playing. Fighting Men made only the mildest impression late last year on the Mainland box-office (RMB20 million) but still announces a very promising talent.
The Chinese title (“Chinese Partners 2”) makes the film look like a direct sequel to American Dreams in China 中国合伙人 (“Chinese Partners”) by Hong Kong director Chen Kexin 陈可辛 [Peter Chan] five years ago, but the only thing the two movies share is a story of friendship between three entrepreneurial types. This time the story is completely centred in the Mainland and with no eyes overseas – a change of emphasis that reflects not only the different authorship but also a shift in the Mainland’s earlier obsession with the US as a model to emulate. Fighting Men has an American-born Chinese returning to his homeland and finding solidarity with two entrepreneurs after their locally-invented computer operating system is crushed by Microsoft in the late 1990s. The message isn’t grandstanded but it runs through the film like a home key and is especially pertinent today as the government continues to encourage home-grown operating systems to break the reliance on/domination by Microsoft.
The long-spanned story, pitted with flashbacks, stretches from the early 1990s to 2008, from the development of a Chinese OS by computer geek Chu Zhenhui and his pal Qin Lei, through its abandonment by the company financing it, to their launch of an early e-commerce business along with a Chinese American friend, Shawn, who’s belatedly gone native. The bulk of the film focuses on this last development – a timely subject in e-mad China that has made the fortunes of many – with plenty of opportunities for retro humour as the team struggles to raise finance and customer interest around the turn of the century. As the business finally booms in 2004, Chen Zhihui’s obsession with his invention – basically to prove himself after his earlier failure – starts to threaten the trio’s friendship.
For a character actor with theatrical experience like Zhao Lixin 赵立新, 50, who played the family driver in courtroom drama Silent Witness 全民目击 (2013) and political commissar in Youth 芳华 (2017), the role of Chen Zhihui is a peach of a part to which he rises superbly, balancing light comedy and personal mania in a commanding way that anchors the whole film. As his pal, TV actor Ling Xiaosu 凌潇肃, 38, brings a more genial balance to their chemistry, while young actor-singer Wang Jia 王嘉, 26, manages to fit in as the Chinese American millennial, despite some rocky English. The female cast doesn’t get much of a look-in in a predominantly buddy movie, though TV’s Dong Qi 董琦, 31, is impressive in her few scenes as an old flame of Chen Zhihui with more backstory than is ever detailed on screen.
Versatile widescreen photography by Wu Di 邬迪, who’s done many films for director Wang Xiaoshuai 王小帅, has a slightly heightened sense of realism which adds atmosphere and period flavour to the convincing settings by art director Lv Dong 吕东, also a Wang collaborator (11 Flowers 我11, 2011; So Long, My Son 地久天长, 2019). Music by Yuan Sihan 袁思翰 is okay but unfortunately drops the ball during Chu Zhenhui’s climactic speech. Though the film is largely set in Beijing, it was all shot in Shanghai, with no loss of believability.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Performance & Arts Group (CN), China Film (CN), Jiangsu Chao Guangjiao Film & Culture (CN), Beijing New United Films (CN). Produced by China Film (CN), Beijing Performance & Arts Group (CN), Jiangsu Chao Guangjiao Film & Culture (CN), Beijing New United Films (CN).
Script: Mao Yuezhi, Zhu Shang, Zuo Zhiyong. Photography: Wu Di. Editing: Cao Weijie. Music: Yuan Sihan. Art direction: Lv Dong. Styling: Wang Yi. Sound: Qi Siming, Wang Danrong. Action: Cheng Yushan. Visual effects: Ma Cong, Xu Tianye, Liu Pengfei. Executive direction: Liu Yong, Yu Bo.
Cast: Zhao Lixin (Chu Zhenhui), Ling Xiaosu (Qin Lei), Wang Jia (Xu Shunzhi/Shawn), Dong Qi (Liu Ke), Ma Mengwei (Zhao Qing), Kou Shixun (Chen Haoda/Richard), Tobgyal (Yang Chengdong), Yang Yi (Miao Xiaofeng), Wang Jinsong (Tang), Hai Yitian (He Aimin), Wang Wei (Shen Nan/Monica), He Kuan (Yu’s assistant in KTV), Liu Jianwei (Yu, potential investor in KTV), Fan Jintao (Xue Youge), Xiang Wang (Lin Wei), Lou Yunfei (Fattie), Min Jian (man with glasses), Zhang Yezi (woman in disco bar), Fang Zheng (old man in bath-house).
Release: China, 18 Dec 2018.