YOLO
热辣滚烫
China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 128 mins.
Director: Jia Ling 贾玲.
Rating: 7/10.
Mainland comedienne Jia Ling’s second feature as writer-director-star hits the bell again, if not quite the equal of her first, Hi, Mom.
STORY
A city in southern China, Sep 2022. Massively overweight and not interested in anything, Du Leying (Jia Ling), 32, lounges at home all day, either sleeping or eating. She’s patiently observed by her mother (Zhao Haiyan), and somewhat less patiently by her younger sister Du Ledan (Zhang Xiaofei), who’s moved back into the family flat with her young daughter Zhuzi (Sun Wanzhu) following her divorce. Prodded by her mother, Du Leying is interviewed by her journalist cousin Doudou (Yang Zi) for the programme Find Yourself 寻找自己, explaining how, after graduation, she worked for a while but then returned home, and hasn’t felt like doing anything for the past 10 years. Her family runs a small supermarket below the flat. Fed up one day, Du Leying meets up with Binzi (Qiao Bin), the man she calls her “love”, and her BFF of 15 years, Lili (Li Xueqin), completely unaware that the two are sleeping together and plan to marry. When she learns the truth, she spends the rest of the day walking around and binge eating, at one point passing a boxing gym. Next day Du Ledan tries to get Du Leying to sign over to her the flat left by their grandmother; Du Leying refuses and the sisters start fighting. Du Leying leaves home and gets a job as a waitress in a restaurant; the owner (Xu Juncong) tries to get over-friendly when drunk, but she’s befriended by her co-worker Xizi (Shen Chunyang). One night she meets by chance the boxer, Hao Kun (Lei Jiayin), whom she’d passed that day by the gym; next day she returns some boxing gloves he left behind, and in gratitude Hao Kun asks her if she’s ever boxed. The staff at the gym are under pressure from the owner, Liang (Sha Yi), to sell classes; Du Leying, who’s taken a liking to Hao Kun, agrees to sign up, and she starts working out at the gym. One night, after a meal in which he gets blind drunk, they end up in bed together – much to his embarrassment next morning. Sensing his unfulfilled ambition, Du Leying secretly arranges for Hao Kun – instead of younger fellow trainer Zhu Tianfu (Zhu Tianfu) – to take part in a championship fight in the city. Just before the fight she learns Hao Kun has accepted RMB30,000 from his opponent’s father (Ji Yuchen) to lose the fight; when she confronts Hao Kun he refuses to back down and she walks out. Back at work, her drunken boss tries to get amorous with her and she knocks him out. Doudou persuades her to go on a TV reality show, which turns out to be a humiliating experience. Afterwards she decides to seriously train as a boxer for a championship fight, in order “to win just once”.
REVIEW
Following her CNY mega-hit Hi, Mom 你好，李焕英 (2021), Mainland comedienne Jia Ling 贾玲, 42, hits the bell again with YOLO 热辣滚烫, her second film as writer-director-star, in which an indolent fattie gains her sense of self-respect by getting in shape for a boxing match. Loosely based on the 2014 Japanese film 100 Yen Love 百円の恋 – written by Adachi Shin 足立绅 and directed by Take Masaharu 武正晴 – it has a strong first half but loses its way in the second, with a running time that’s about 10 minutes too long. Despite that, it has a slyly humorous tone very typical of Jia, as well as being an offbeat love story with a good part for under-rated actor Lei Jiayin 雷佳音. With none of her first film’s heartwarming nostagia, YOLO didn’t equal the gigantic take of Hi, Mom (RMB5.41 billion) but it again took the year’s CNY crown with a hefty RMB3.46 billion, just beating rally-driving light comedy Pegasus 2 飞驰人生2 (RMB3.40 billion) into second place.
Maybe anxious to distance it from an earlier female boxing movie, Shallow 出拳吧妈妈 (2021), Jia has said the film is neither about weight loss nor about boxing, but rather about a woman going through a re-birth. The last is very true, but it has to be said that Jia managed to squeeze considerable publicity from the 11-month programme she herself went through to lose 100 pounds for the role, including charting the whole thing during the film’s end titles. Where the original Japanese film went for a more realistic story, with actress Ando Sakura 安藤サクラ as simply a socially awkward employee in a bargain mini-mart (see poster, left), YOLO invents the whole fattie angle and plays up its comic/grotesque side, with Jia (already known for her tubby roles) stomping around as a 210-pound goliath during the first 80-odd minutes before transforming into an almost unrecognisable, toned athlete for the finale.
All that aside, the film is basically a slyly comic portrait of a woman who finally regains her self-respect by finding a seemingly impossibe goal in life to aspire to. Like the lead character herself, it takes its time (but with absolute self-confidence) gradually manoeuvring the quietly spoken, indolent but independent-minded Du Leying (Jia) towards the last place on Earth you’d expect to find her – a boxing gym. There she finds a trainer, Hao Kun (Lei), who’s under pressure from the gym’s boss to sell classes, and a curious relationship develops that’s a mixture of attraction, selfishness and shared goals – and leads to her deciding to attempt the impossible by getting in shape and entering a championship match.
Whether Du Leying wins or loses the match is almost beside the point by that stage, as the script (by largely the same team as for Hi, Mom) has made it clear that Du Leying’s journey is more important than her arrival. It’s also many things rolled into one, not simply a comedy, an offbeat love story nor a grandstanding issue film. Jia’s beautifully understated comic timing, which in Hi, Mom found such a perfect partner in comedian Shen Teng 沈腾, is here echoed in a different way by a strong supporting cast that’s primarily composed of good actors rather than comics. As the slightly shady trainer who both likes and uses Du Leying, Lei, a subtle actor whose time has finally come (he also played the lead in the CNY No. 3 contender, Article 20 第二十条), makes a perfect acting foil, as do Zhang Xiaofei 张小斐 (so good as the young mother-to-be in Hi, Mom) as Du Leying’s manipulative younger sister and opera actress/teacher Zhao Haiyan 赵海燕 (Almost a Comedy 半个喜剧, 2019) as her tolerant mother.
Providing comic colour at the edges is the usual gang of Jia’s friends and colleagues, including Ma Li 马丽 and Wei Xiang 魏翔 as judges on a TV show, Qiao Shan 乔杉 as Du Leying’s duplicitous “love”, and internet personality Li Xueqin 李雪琴 (Post Truth #保你平安, 2022) as her equally duplicitous BFF. Real-life boxing champ Zhang Guiling 张桂玲 plays Du Leying’s opponent in the finale.
With all this richness at an acting and writing level, more’s the pity that the film suffers from the common Mainland complaint of over-length, losing focus in the second half. A whole 10-minute section centred on a TV show could easily be cut, and several other sequences are needlessly padded out, especially the finale. On the credit side, the boxing scenes, shot in long, real-time takes, have a genuine feel, and the pleasant, upbeat score by Peng Fei 彭飞 is a good companion throughout (except for the cliched use of Rocky music for Du Leying’s training scenes).
The film’s English title is an acronym for “You Only Live Once”; the Chinese title means “Hot and Burning”. The film was shot in Guangdong province, southern China, between Sep 2022 and late 2023, with Jia’s slimming/training routine spread over Jan-Nov 2023. A four-part making-of documentary, 我只活一次 (literally, “I Only Live Once”), was released online on 16 Apr 2024 (see poster, left).
CREDITS
Presented by New Classics Pictures (CN), China Film (CN), Alibaba Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Tianjin Yuewen Film & TV Culture Communication (CN), Beijing Big Bowl Entertainment Culture Media (CN), Sanya Wenyi Xiaohong Culture Media (CN), Beijing Little M Media (CN), Shanghai Tencent Penguin Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Golden Cicada Film (CN).
Script: Jia Ling, Sun Jibin, Liu Honglu, Guo Yupeng, Bu Yu. Photography: Liu Yin. Editing: Zhou Xiaolin. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Li Miao. Styling: Lei Shuyu. Sound: Yang Jiang, Zhao Nan. Action: Wang Cheng. Visual effects: Du Fengle, Gong Ming, Ding Yanlai. Executive direction: Qian Ru.
Cast: Jia Ling (Du Leying), Lei Jiayin (Hao Kun), Zhang Xiaofei (Du Ledan, Du Leying’s younger sister), Sha Yi (Liang, boxing gym owner), Zhao Haiyan (Du Leying’s mother), Zhang Qi (Du Leying’s father), Xu Juncong (restaurant boss), Bu Yu (He Kun), Zhu Tianfu (Zhu Tianfu), Liu Honglu (begging cyclist), Yang Zi (Doudou, Du Leying’s cousin), Li Xueqin (Lili, Du Leying’s BFF), Shen Chunyang (Jiang Chenruoxi/Xizi), Shen Tao (Xiaotao, TV show MC), Ma Li (Ma Chunli, TV show judge), Qiao Shan (Binzi, Du Leying’s boyfriend), Wei Xiang (Wei Dongfeng, TV show judge), Liu Di (sacked restaurant waiter), Sun Wanzhu (Zhuzi, Du Ledan’s young daughter), Zhang Taiwei (agent), Li Haiyin (gym receptionist), Jian Shanshan (membership advisor), Ji Yuchen (Wen Qiang’s father), Yan Meng (Wen Qiang), Zhang Guiling (Liu Hongxia).
Release: China, 10 Feb 2024.