Love on the Cloud

微爱之渐入佳境

China/Hong Kong, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 97 mins.

Director: Gu Changwei 顾长卫.

Rating: 7/10.

Likeable cast gives an average rom-com/movie satire an unpretentious, fluffy charm.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. In a luxury hotel, three wannabe film-makers – scriptwriter Sha Guo (Chen He), actor-producer Huang Xiaogua (Zhang Luyi) and cameraman Ma Dai (Cao Lu) – pitch a project to Miss Ma (Wang Ji), a cattle tycoon from Inner Mongolia. The script is called Living with the Wolf Man 与狼人同居的日子, based on Sha Guo’s earlier script Wolf Man in Love 狼人之恋, and will have Huang Xiaogua as the lead actor. On condition the script is rewritten to plug her Little Bull brand of beef jerky, Miss Ma agrees to their RMB8 million budget, and gives them a cash deposit of RMB8,000. In fact, the trio are virtually penniless: Sha Guo has only ever been a ghost writer, Huang Xiaogua a film extra and Ma Dai an online shopping-catalogue photographer. The penniless trio immediately rent a flat in fashionable media district Shuangjing, set up their company Three Dreaming Swordsmen Workshop, and prepare for the high life. Sha Guo starts hunting women on free-messaging app WeChat, and meets car-show model Chen Xi (Yang Ying), who lives in the apartment block opposite. She likes him but actually just wants someone to look after her dog while she’s away in Shanghai for work. On her return, she gets to know the trio and Sha Guo dreams of her becoming his girlfriend. Miss Ma likes the new script and raises her investment to RMB12 million, but wants another rewrite to shift the story’s location to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and incorporate “fresh and young” elements as in the hit rom-com Love Is Not Blind 是连33天 (2011). After a third rewrite, to include a part for Lost in Thailand 人再囧途之泰囧 (2012) star Wang Baoqiang, Huang Xiaogua goes to Inner Mongolia to check out if Miss Ma is genuine. Meanwhile, Chen Xi gets Sha Guo to write a romantic wedding short for her friend Monica (Tu Yanni), who’s about to tie the knot with a businessman (Ju Hao). Huang Xiaogua returns from Inner Mongolia with more cash from Miss Ma, and also with a young woman, Xiaoqing (Jiang Ruijia), who’s always dreamed of coming to Beijing. Then Miss Ma wants yet another rewrite, this time incorporating horror elements.

REVIEW

The most surprising thing about Love on the Cloud 微爱之渐入佳境 is the name on the can – d.p.-turned-director Gu Changwei 顾长卫, whose three features to date (Peacock 孔雀, 2005; And the Spring Comes 立春, 2007; AIDS drama Love for Life 最爱, 2011) have been about as far from commercial rom-coms as you can get. In the event, Gu, 57, has the last laugh: Cloud is hardly a great example of the genre – in fact, it’s more a satire on China’s film industry than a romantic comedy – but it gets by on the performances of its leads, especially Yang Ying 杨颖 [Angelababy] and big-screen newcomer Chen He 陈赫, and appears to have no greater ambition than to be a charming piece of fluff.

The film’s Chinese title (roughly, “SMS Love: Gradually Entering Nirvana”) leads one to expect a kind of “love in the internet age” rom-com; but apart from lots of free promo for messaging app WeChat, social media don’t play a large part, and on-screen pop-ups are restrained compared with some other Asian movies. Instead, the main plotline centres on three penniless wannabes who dream of getting a movie made but end up being strung along by a cattle tycooon in Inner Mongolia who demands one rewrite after another. As a satire on “new money” in China’s booming film business, the script, lead written by Gu Wei 顾伟 (forthcoming Bride Wars 新娘大作战, 2015, also starring Yang), is hardly original and just okay, strung along with in-jokes and name cameos (including actors Jiang Wu 姜武, Wang Baoqiang 王宝强 and Tong Dawei 佟大为, Gu Changwei’s actress wife Jiang Wenli 蒋雯丽 as a hard-arsed landlady, and veteran singer Mao Amin 毛阿敏 as an ageing beauty). The rom-com element centres on the scriptwriter character hopelessly falling for an ambitious car-show model who’s seemingly only interested in being his pal.

That element wends its way through the movie, inbetween comic sequences of the three wannabes doing one rewrite after another and always thinking they’re on the brink of realising the big time. For good measure there’s also a parody of a Bollywood musical sequence (fun), a spoof of horror films (laboured) and, under the end titles, for no good reason, a Chinese take on Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) by the whole cast (interesting). Good as the chemistry is between the three guys – with TV-theatre actor-director Zhang Luyi 张鲁一 taking the lead in a grandstanding performance – it’s the scenes between Chen and Yang that are the most affecting in the movie.

A variable performer, who needs the right parts and strong direction, actress-model Yang is at her most relaxed here, to Gu’s credit as a director: whether masticating on a juicy dumpling or patiently playing along with male antics, she gives a rom-com performance that’s among her best (Love You You 夏日乐悠悠, 2011; First Time 第一次, 2012) and chimes well with TV’s Chen, 29, as her nerdy admirer. Veteran theatre actress Wang Ji 王姬, 52, keeps popping up entertainingly as the mercurial investor who’s always changing her mind.

Widescreen cinematography by the versatile Yang Shu 杨述, who shot Gu’s Peacock, gives a slightly heightened feel to a variety of settings, from urban Beijing through Inner Mongolia’s grasslands to the characters’ apartments, in addition to the spoof sequences. Other technical credits are okay, with Hong Kong editor Chen Zhiwei 陈志伟 [Andy Chan] keeping everything to a tight 90-or-so minutes. But at the end of the day it’s the likeable ensemble by the cast that earns the film an extra point it otherwise wouldn’t merit.

CREDITS

Presented by Huayi Brothers Media (CN), TIK Films (Beijing) (CN), Huayi Brothers International (HK). Produced by Huayi Brothers Media (CN).

Script: Gu Wei, Guo Fangfang, Yang Weiwei, Amber King. Photography: Yang Shu. Editing: Chen Zhiwei [Andy Chan]. Music: Chen Weilun, Zhang Kun, Liu Ye, Li Ruotian. Production design: Wang Weiyuan. Styling: Ma Defan. Sound: Li Wen, Gu Changning.

Cast: Yang Ying [Angelababy] (Chen Xi), Chen He (Sha Guo), Zhang Luyi (Huang Xiaogua), Cao Lu (Ma Dai), Jiang Ruijia (Xiaoqing, Huang Xiaogua’s girlfriend), Wang Ji (Miss Ma), Ju Hao (Datou), Tu Yanni (Monica, Datou’s bride), Jiang Wu (hotel security guard), Mao Amin (Beauty of Hengdian), Song Dongye (chuan seller), Wang Baoqiang (himself), Wang Jiajia (ghostly woman in white), Tong Dawei (apartment security guard), Jiang Wenli (landlady), Wen Zhang (Wang Xiaojian/Dr. Huang, mad doctor), Gu Changwei (roast duck chef).

Release: China, 24 Dec 2014; Hong Kong, tba.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 30 Jan 2015.)