Somebody to Love

我们约会吧

China, 2011, colour, 1.85:1, 92 mins.

Director: Zhou Nan 周楠.

Rating: 4/10.

Very routine Valentine’s Day rom-com, whose various stories are woven together in a bumpy way.

STORY

A coastal city in China, the present day. After researching a controversial expose of the Lu Group and its young CEO Lu Jiasen (Wang Bojie), Wang Zhenni (Li Fei’er) is transferred to another production team at the same TV studio – that of dating show Take Me Out 我们约会吧. The show’s ratings are falling and the programme is rumoured to be cancelled soon. Its producer, Sheng Rong (Liu Weiwei), is already under pressure as her marriage has fallen apart and she’s moved out – all of which she’s trying to keep secret from her gossipy team. She tells them she wants a spectacular line-up of guests for the Valentine’s Day edition, and challenges eager-beaver Wang Zhenni to bring it off by hooking Lu Jiasen, 27, and the city’s most eligible bachelor, as a contestant. Dismayed, but hoping Lu Jiasen won’t know who she is, Wang Zhenni doorsteps him at a hotel and he’s friendly but non-committal. Meanwhile, one of the production team, Jian Chen (Wang Sen), has a girlfriend, Xue Shasha (Cao Yuan), who’s become known thanks to a singing competition; but both are conflicted over whether to make their relationship public. Wang Zhenni’s cousin and flatmate, Gu Jia (Wu Chenjun), who works as manager to concert pianist Gao Fan (Dennis Oh), a friend since college days, is always being set up with blind dates by her family. She’s also constantly denying rumours that she’s in a relationship with Gao Fan; he shows no interest in marriage but seems to encourage Gu Jia to look after him. Then one evening she meets a wealthy man, Hu Jun (Ren Zhong), who helps her out in an underground car park, and a relationship develops, with him eventually inviting her to accompany him on a trip to the US. Meanwhile, Lu Jiasen seems to enjoy being courted by Wang Zhenni but still won’t commit to being a guest on the dating show. When Sheng Rong is informed by the TV station’s head (Ma Jingwu) that the Valentine’s Day live broadcast is cancelled due to lack of studio space, the whole production team decides to stage it outdoors, come what may.

REVIEW

A Valentine’s Day rom-com that weaves together four different relationships in a rather bumpy way, Somebody to Love 我们约会吧 was the first theatrical feature by Inner Mongolia-born director Zhou Nan 周楠, then 28 and winner of a film-making competition. But it is probably of more interest, in retrospect, for being the first involvement with cinema by Shanghai-based writer-stylista Guo Jingming 郭敬明 and his frequent collaborator Luo Luo 落落 (aka Zhao Jiarong 赵佳蓉) who co-wrote with others the original novel (see cover, left) and, respectively, went on direct the path-breaking millennial quartet Tiny Times 小时代 (2013-15) and notable office rom-com The Last Women Standing 剩者为王 (2015). Somebody made a microscopic impression at the Mainland box office (RMB5.2 million) and did nothing for the careers of Korean American actor Dennis Oh or Taiwan-born actress Wu Chenjun 吴辰君 [Annie Wu], both of whom got lead billing. It was to be almost a decade before Zhou, who kept busy directing shorts and online films, had another theatrical release, the fluffy but entertaining rom-com I Remember 明天你是否依然爱我 (2020).

Set among the production team of a failing dating show – based on the real-life Take Me Out 我们约会吧 (2009-   ), hosted by He Jiong 何炅 (who pops up briefly at the end as the narrator) – the script has problems from the start in balancing its various stories. One (the failed marriage of the show’s producer) hardly gets off the starting blocks, and another (the secret romance of a budding singer and one of the production team) is boring and poorly played. Now mostly in TV, Liu Weiwei 刘威葳, then 35 but acting older, brings some class to the show’s producer, but her role is severely underwritten. The main action is centred on two relationships: the friendship-and-maybe-more between a concert pianist (Oh) and his personal assistant (Wu), and a flirtier affair between a fuerdai CEO (Taiwan’s Wang Bojie 王柏杰, on good form) and the researcher who caused him so much trouble (Li Fei’er 李菲儿, the son’s girlfriend in Chongqing Blues 日照重庆, 2010). Though Li (nowadays mostly in TV) is effectively the central character in the film, and performs creditably with Wang, it’s the older Oh and Wu, both then in their early 30s, who get top billing – though they have much less sexual chemistry than the pair in their early 20s. (It was one of the last leading roles for Wu, now effectively retired.)

Suffused with aspirational lifestyles and fashions, Somebody is routine as an ensemble rom-com and hardly justifies the usual ridiculous things that characters are called upon to do in the genre. Editing by Hong Kong’s Zhang Jiahui 张嘉辉 [Cheung Ka-fai] doesn’t solve the film’s inherent bumpiness. The only real surprise is that the let’s-put-on-a-show finale, signalled early on, doesn’t develop as expected. Production values are okay without being especially luxurious, and the score by prolific Chinese American composer Wang Zongxian 王宗贤 [Nathan Wang] is smooth but unremarkable.

The original novel, Take Me Out 我们约会吧, was a two-volume collection of interwoven love stories written by Guo and several other writers.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Shineshow Cultural Broadcasting (CN).

Script: Fu Yu. Novel: Guo Jingming, Luo Luo [Zhao Jiarong], Di An, Ailisi [Wu Liang], Wang Xiaoli, Xiaoshi Binni, Li Feng. Photography: Deng Liguang. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai]. Music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang]. Art direction: Lu Yunlin. Costume design: Dong Shuren. Costume design advice: Li Hui. Sound: Fei Geng, Zhang Bin, He Wei, Liu Jilian. Executive direction: Gong Chun.

Cast: Dennis Oh (Gao Fan), Wu Chenjun [Annie Wu] (Gu Jia), Li Fei’er (Wang Zhenni/Jenny), Wang Bojie (Lu Jiasen), Liu Weiwei (Sheng Rong), Cao Yuan (Xue Shasha), Wang Sen (Jian Chen), He Jiong (narrator/MC), Ren Zhong (Hu Jun), Ma Jingwu (TV station head), Chen Xiang (worker), Wu Tingye (Sheng Rong’s husband), Tian Qiwen (Gu Jia’s blind date), Zhu Mimi (Gu Jia’s fourth aunt), Feng Mianheng (sponsor Zhang’s assistant), He Yumeng (Han Meng), Liu Chao (Sheng Rong’s assistant).

Release: China, 13 Feb 2011.