Successor
抓娃娃
China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 133 mins.
Directors: Yan Fei 闫非, Peng Damo 彭大魔.
Rating: 7/10.
Comedian Shen Teng and the Ma Hua FunAge gang come up with a typically off-the-wall satire on how far some families will go to mould their offspring for success.
STORY
Xihong city, somewhere on coastal northern China, c. 2017. Multi-millionaire Ma Chenggang (Shen Teng) lives with his second wife Chunlan (Ma Li) and second son Ma Jiye (Xiao Bochen), aged about 11, in a traditional courtyard housing block in Nanguan, a poor district of the city. (After spending a fortune educating his first son, Ma Dajun [Zhang Zidong], overseas in the US with no positive results, Ma Chenggang had decided five years ago to equip Ma Jiye to take over as his successor by raising him in the way he himself grew up, in a traditional, low-income family. Chunlan had intially opposed the decision, as she’d married him for a life of luxury, but Ma Chenggang had insisted. Chunlan’s parents [Zhao Fengxia, Ma Wenbo] had also objected, but Ma Chenggong and Chunlan had whisked Ma Jiye away to Nanguan.) The whole housing block is full of fake tenants on Ma Chenggang’s payroll, and the immediate neighbourhood is full of cameras, in order to control all aspects of the fake environment they have created for Ma Jiye to grow up in. A fully-staffed control centre, reached by a secret lift, is below the housing block, and co-ordinating everything from their first-floor flat is professional educationalist Li Chunhua (Sa Rina), posing as Ma Jiye’s wheelchair-bound “grandma”. They encourage Ma Jiye in traditional pursuits like reading books – while hiding phones inside theirs – and studying hard. Ma Chenggang congratulates all his staff on the success of the first five-year plan and now initiates the next phase of Ma Jiye’s upbringing – teaching him to manage money. The family’s meagre savings are handed over to Ma Jiye, who runs the houehold budget, buying all the food himself. When his parents discover he’s secretly bought a computer tablet, they are appalled; but it turns ou to be one on a free seven-day trial. Ma Chenggang pretends to go off to the countryside for work, leaving Ma Jiye in charge of the family for a while. To make some extra cash, Ma Jiye becomes obsessed with collecting discarded plastic bottles. When he is lured by a young western man (Danny Ray) to the luxurious hotel room of a Chinese man, Ma Chenggang and his team rush to his rescue – but the Chinese man turns out to be the no-good Ma Dajun, wanting to see his younger brother. Ma Chenggang threatens to freeze Ma Dajun’s credit card unless he behaves. Seeing that Ma Jiye is showing an interest in athletics – which could imperil the long-term plan for him to study business management at Qingbei university – Ma Chenggang arranges for a fake doctor to diagnose his son with a rare disease that prevents him taking part. Some seven years later, Ma Jiye is at senior high school and soon to sit the gaokao (university entrance exam); he is close friends with female classmate Zhang Feifei (Li Jiaqi), who wants to study dance in the future. Thanks to his upbringing and diligent studying, Ma Jiye is way ahead of his classmates in maturity and intelligence, and looks set to pass the gaokao with flying colours. But one day, on his way home, he happens to see his supposedly wheelchair-bound “grandma” playing basketball with some friends. Suddenly, his whole world starts to collapse, as begins to doubt everything he’s been taught to believe in.
REVIEW
A multi-millionaire goes to extreme lengths to raise his second son in the modest way he himself grew up in Successor 抓娃娃, the third feature by writer-directors Yan Ni 闫非 and Peng Damo 彭大魔 with actor-comedian Shen Teng 沈腾 following the hits Goodbye Mr. Loser 夏洛特烦恼 (2015) and Hello Mr. Billionaire 西虹市首富 (2018). Unlike the previous two, Successor is a screen original; but the quality of satirical invention, despite the usual second-half weaknesses, remains high. Yan, Peng and Shen are all alumni of Beijing-based theatre company Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花, whose offbeat sense of humour and satirical spirit pervade the movie, with plenty of Ma Hua regulars in the cast and Shen re-teamed with his dream partner, comedienne Ma Li 马丽, also a Ma Hua alumna. Box office in summer 2024 was a mega RMB3.33 billion, topping the previous films’ hawls of RMB1.44 billion and RMB2.55 billion. And where Loser and Billionaire took fifth and fourth spots in their respective year’s box-office charts, Successor improved on that as well, coming no. 3 in the 2024 hit parade.
Technically, this is the fourth feature collaboration between Yan, Peng and Shen. In late 2019 they started shooting 全民狂欢 (literally, “The Whole Population Makes Whoopee”), which satirised the business invasion of Hainan island after it was designated a province and a special economic zone in 1988. Written by Lin Bingbao 林炳宝 (Billionaire; the Shen-directed episode in My Country, My Parents 我和我的父辈, 2021; Successor), it was originally scheduled for release during CNY 2021 but has since vanished and is currently scheduled for 2028. In addition, Yan, Peng and Shen (plus Ma Li) collaborated on the final (and marginally best) episode in the portmanteau National Day movie, My People My Homeland 我和我的家乡 (2020).
Films by the Ma Hua gang almost always stand out for the originality of their central ideas – slightly surreal, slightly farcical, and always with a satirical point. In those respects, Successor is one of their strongest: after his first, pampered son turned out to be a slob, a multi-millionaire who was raised in a poor family decides he won’t make the same mistake again and teaches his second son the virtues of poverty, a traditional upbringing, and managing his own affairs. That way, his second son will be properly equipped to become his successor.
As well as quietly parodying various cliches of old-style Mainland films, Successor is primarily a satire on the lengths to which some Mainland Chinese families will go to mould their offspring for success, or in their own image. Ma Chenggang’s first son received an overseas education in the US (very popular a generation of so ago) but turned out to be a slob; for his second son, Ma Chenggang goes in the opposite direction – homegrown to the utmost and imbued with the qualities of the pre-digital age.
The best stuff, as usual, is in the first half, as the audience is gradually let into the completely phony world that Ma Chenggang (Shen) has constructed around his young son – whom he’s also renamed Jiye (literally, “Continue the Business”), from his more earthy original Niuniu (“Cow-Cow”). Everyone in the dilapidated, traditional courtyard housing block that Ma Chenggang, his second wife Chunlan (Ma Li) and Ma Jiye have moved into is on the father’s payroll – from the poverty-stricken “neighbours” to the local “bookseller”, and even Ma Jiye’s wheelchair-bound “grandma” (actually a well-known educationalist). Bodyguards secretly look out for Ma Jiye’s safety, the neighbourhood is full of cameras, and in the basement (reached via a hidden lift) is a massive control centre for the whole operation. When the movie begins, Ma Chenggang congratulates his staff on the success of the “first five-year plan” for Ma Jiye’s upbringing, and is ready to move into phase two, in which the boy is set various challenges to handle the family’s day-to-day finances.
Set in Shen’s favourite fictional Xihong City – whose Chinese name 西虹市 also sounds exactly like the word for “tomato” 西红柿 – the first hour or so ranks with the best that Shen and his team have done, the situations unfolding with typically straightfaced humour, seasoned by an occasional wacky idea or familiar sight gag (such as Shen and Ma Li’s pose on the film’s poster, see above). Flashbacks sketch Ma Jiye’s earlier life as a spoiled fattie as well as Chunlan’s brief opposition to her husband’s decision (after marrying him for a life of luxury). And although the humour is often sketch-like, it’s always character-driven and hung on a strong narrative with a sense of direction. Shen and his writers aren’t afraid to occasionally push the comic envelope, as in one episode in which the young Ma Jiye, aged around 11, is lured to the swanky hotel room of an older man and his western friend – a potentially seedy situation that’s then cleverly sidestepped.
It’s around the 70-minute mark that, as in many Ma Hua films, including Loser and Billionaire, the whole thing starts to lose momentum. As the film moves forward some half-dozen years, to Ma Jiye at senior high and about to sit the gaokao (university entrance exam), the central joke about the parents always trying to hide the truth from their son stays the same, with no real development – capped by a (not unexpected) finale which is so anti-climactic it’s almost shrugged off. Loser’s running time was 98 minutes and Billionaire’s 116; at the latter length, rather than 133, Successor would have been a much sharper movie.
Despite that, there’s still much to enjoy, from Shen and Ma’s straightfaced playing, through the witty performance of Inner Mongolia-born veteran Sa Rina 萨日娜 as the fake “grandma”, to cameos by comics like Wei Xiang 魏翔 as a harrassed teacher, Jia Bing 贾冰 as a cocky rich friend, Li Jiaqi 李嘉琦 as a crazed girlfriend of the teenage Ma Jiye, and Yu Yang 于洋 as a mobile-phone salesman. Mostly shot in and around Qingdao city, the film creates a believable world thanks to the cleverly understated photography by d.p. Sun Ming 孙明 and detailed art direction by Wang Shuo 王朔 (both from the two previous films). A varied orchestral score by Peng Fei 彭飞 (ditto) helps a lot to bind the whole thing together.
CREDITS
Presented by Haikou Slinky Town Pictures (CN), Wanda Pictures (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Beijing Fun Age Pictures (CN), Shanghai Ruyi Films (CN), Beijing Alibaba Pictures (CN), Horgos Lian Ray Pictures (CN), China Film (CN), Changying Times Media (CN), Slinky Town Pictures (Tianjin) (CN). Produced by Haikou Slinky Town Pictures (CN), Slinky Town Pictures (Tianjin) (CN), Qingdao Youyuli Film & TV Culture (CN).
Script: Peng Damo, Yan Fei, Lin Bingbao. Photography: Sun Ming. Editing: Zhou Xiaolin. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Wang Shuo. Costumes: Hou Wenhua. Styling: Li Hua. Sound: Lin Xuelin, Feng Yanming. Action: Zhuang Yuanzhang. Visual effects: Yuan Huatang, Wu Zhen. Executive direction: Qian Ru.
Cast: Shen Teng (Ma Chenggang), Ma Li (Chunlan), Shi Pengyuan (teenage Ma Jiye), Sa Rina (“grandma”/Li Chunhua), Xiao Bochen (young Ma Jiye), Zhang Zidong (Ma Dajun), Li Jiaqi (Zhang Feifei), Zhao Fengxia (Chunlan’s mother), Ma Wenbo (Chunlan’s father), Sun Guiquan (Sun Quan, Ma Jiye’s bodyguard), Yang Wenzhe (Yang Zhe, Ma Jiye’s bodyguard), Wei Xiang (Wei, high-school teacher), Jia Bing (Jia, businessman friend), Yu Yang (mobile-phone retailer), Li Zongheng (funeral MC), Liu Jian (Yu, sports trainer), Ding Liuyuan (Ding, teacher), Wang Chengsi (butcher), Zhang Yiming (Zhuang Qiang, Da Xiang team), Tao Liang (funeral-home boss), Luo Jia (Wang, head cook), Chen Bing (Zhou, bookshop owner), Qu Shuang (Wang, nanny), Zhou Qingyun (Jia Qiqiang), Jia’s son), Ma Chi (Xiaowang, Ma Chenggang’s driver), Huang Hongzhen (Zhou Xiaohu), Yang Shan (Zhou Xiaohu’s father), Gao Xuanming (Li Zhenxing, high-school pupil), Danny Ray [Dmitrijs Rezanovics] (Ma Bide/Peter), Mekael Turner, Alona Sydorenko (English-speaking couple in street). Alona Sydorenko (English-speaking young woman in street).
Release: China, 16 Jul 2024.