One and Only
热烈
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 123 mins.
Director: Da Peng 大鹏 [Dong Chengpeng 董成鹏].
Rating: 6/10.
Comedian Huang Bo’s performance as a wily manager is the best thing about this formulaic follow-your-dream film set in the world of street dancing.
STORY
Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, east China, Apr 2022. At the 2022 Zhejiang [Street] Dance Games, the famous E-mark team, trained by former dancer Ding Lei (Huang Bo), wins by the skin of its teeth when its egotistical star dancer, Kevin (Kasibo), shows up at the last moment. This qualifies E-mark for the national championship. The cocky Kevin later tells Ding Lei that he wants five of the team replaced with foreign dancers he’s already contracted. Determined to maintain his authority, Ding Lei has the idea to replace Kevin during training and rehearsals with another dancer. He chooses the ambitious Chen Shuo (Wang Yibo), who once auditioned for E-mark and is scraping a living doing cosplay gigs under the management of Xie (Xiaoshenyang), the brother-in-law of his widowed mother Du Lisha (Liu Mintao). A former singer, Du Lisha runs a restaurant and is trying to pay off the medical bills accrued by her husband’s death a year ago. Ding Lei hires Chen Shuo, who’s always dreamed of joining E-mark, for RMB5,000 a month but stresses he can’t take Kevin’s place at the national championship. Chen Shuo accepts the deal and trains obsessively, especially the difficult head-spin that Kevin performs. Kevin, who never turns up for training sessions, hears about Chen Shuo and becomes annoyed. He steals all the team’s past trophies from Ding Lei’s office, and makes it difficult for Ding Lei to pay the rent, in order to pressure him to hire the five foreign dancers. With the help of ex-wife Dandan (Qi Xi), a businesswoman, Ding Lei tries to raise some rent money from old friends Da Fei (Dong Borui) and Ma Da (Wang Di). He’s forced to accept a RMB100,000 sponsorship deal from a former street dancer-turned-businessman promoting a electronic rubbish bin. Meanwhile, Chen Shuo befriends a trainee journalist, Li Mingzhu (Song Zu’er), whom he keeps bumping into on the late-night train. However, he tells Ding Lei that his mother still has RMB50,000 of debts to pay off. The E-mark team votes unanimously for Chen Shuo to perform with them at the Super-Power Dance Party – his first official appearance. Chen Shuo’s first big public outing is a triumph, and especially his head spin. The furious Kevin then makes his big move, telling Ding Lei he’ll come back to the team for the national championship but only if Chen Shuo is no longer a part of E-mark.
REVIEW
The fifth directorial outing by Mainland comedian Da Peng 大鹏, One and Only 热烈 was released only a few months after his fourth, Post Truth #保你平安 (2022), and in several respects represents a change in direction for the 42-year-old entertainer. For a start, it’s his first film as a writer-director in which – maybe significantly – he doesn’t also take the lead role; and it also has a much more calculated commercial feel – a follow-your-dream youth picture gussied up with lots of street dancing and two stars aimed at different demographics, middle-aged character comedian Huang Bo 黄渤 and young dancer-rapper-boybander Wang Yibo 王一博, both with big followings. Though, like many Mainland films nowadays, it’s way too long at two hours, the confection works fairly well and gains an extra point from a richly-observed performance by Huang, as a onetime street dancer-turned-manager. It took a very nice RMB913 million at last summer’s box office, making it Da Peng’s second most successful film as a director since his first, Jianbing Man 煎饼侠 (2015).
Last year was a particularly good one for the indefatigable Da Peng – stage name of Jilin-born Dong Chengpeng 董成鹏 – who also had creepy straight parts in the period spy drama Hidden Blade 无名 (2023) and crime drama Dust to Dust 第八个嫌疑人 (2023) as well as the co-lead role in comedy Johnny Keep Walking! 年会不能停！ (2023). For the script of One and Only he’s teamed as usual with fellow north-easterner Su Biao 苏彪, who’s in his mid-30s, and come up with a screenplay that is their least sketch-driven to date. Maybe that’s why Da Peng, whose background is in sketch comedy, turned the older lead role over to Huang, a veteran character actor, rather than play it himself. Whatever the reason, it’s a rich opportunity that Huang (who can be a variable actor) makes the most of, playing the wily, somewhat bitter and very opportunistic manager Ding Lei who still shows enough humanity to carry the audience along with him. Thanks to Huang’s strong but not hammy screen presence, the film is equally about him and the love he pours into the sport to make up for being injured out years earlier. In that respect, his participation in the finale does make a kind of sense.
As wannabe street dancer Chen Shuo who’s desperate to join Ding Lei’s prize-winning team, Wang, 26, is smart casting, given his own background in dance. In 2023 Wang graduated to leading roles in film – Hidden Blade and Born to Fly 长空之王 (2023) – and he acquits himself especially well in his third star outing, completely ditching his pretty boybander image to play a quietly ambitious, average kid who gains Ding Lei’s favour through sheer hard work. The chemistry between Wang and Huang is also very good, and helps to sustain the film through the script’s more formulaic ingredients, such as Chen Shuo working to pay off his widowed mum’s debts or Chen Shuo falling for a cute trainee journalist.
The film is also lighter on the cameos by actor pals that usually decorate Da Peng’s productions. Here it’s just tiny parts by fellow entertainers Yue Yunpeng 岳云鹏 and Xiaoshenyang 小沈阳, as Chen Shuo’s uncle and manager respectively, that could easily have been deleted (the first) or played by another actor (the second). Among the supporting cast, the ever-fine actresses Liu Mintao 刘敏涛 (Revival 回廊亭, 2023) and (more briefly) Qi Xi 齐溪 stand out as Chen Shuo’s plucky mum and Ding Lei’s waspish ex-wife. In what may be a sly in-joke, Qi also played the wife of Da Peng’s character in Dust to Dust.
However, when all is said and done One and Only is basically a street-dance movie, from its many training and rehearsal scenes with well-known street-dancers to the three flashy dance sequences – at the start, middle and end – that anchor the whole thing. Like the recent basketball movie Lose to Win 好像也没那么热血沸腾 (2023), you just know it’s going to end with a huge finale, in this case 25 minutes long. In this respect, unlike Da Peng’s previous productions, the film is utterly formulaic, with no surprises, and the second half has a very padded feel, with copious montage sequences and dialogue scenes that go on much too long. At 95 minutes, rather than two hours, the film would have been much more digestible – though maybe not as attractive to a youth audience.
Technically it’s top drawer, from the flash-and-dazzle of the dance sequences to the naturalistic training scenes, and especially in the mass of VFX (exhaustively credited in the end titles) that convincingly meld actors like Wang and Huang with street-dance doubles. Key crew are essentially the same as on Post Truth, with a few additions such as d.p. Zhong Rui 钟锐 (My Dear Liar 受益人, 2019; Wild Grass 荞麦疯长, 2020) joining Qian Tiantian 钱添添. The film’s Chinese title literally means “enthusiastic(ally)” or “ardent(ly)”.
CREDITS
Presented by Ruyi Films (Hanghou) (CN), Shanghai The City Film (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), China Film (CN), Shanghai Hanna Pictures (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), Wanda Film Holding (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Shanghai Ruyi Film & TV Production (CN). Produced by Shanghai Ruyi Film & TV Production (CN).
Script: Su Biao, Da Peng [Dong Chengpeng], Zhang Zhen, Wu Chuqi, Hao Wenling. Photography: Zhong Rui, Qian Tiantian. Editing: Tu Yiran. Dance editing: Zhang Yibo. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Du Guangyu. Costumes: Gao Yi. Styling: Zhao Yige. Sound: Wang Gang, Liu Xiaosha, Lu Ke. Action: Bak Gye-cheon, Wang Zhenming. Visual effects: Chen Suihua, Ma Xiaorui. Dance consultant: Wang Shenling. Executive direction: Qian Ru, Xi Jialin.
Cast: Huang Bo (Ding Lei), Wang Yibo (Chen Shuo), Liu Mintao (Du Lisha, Chen Shuo’s mother), Yue Yunpeng (Du, Ding Lei’s uncle), Xiaoshenyang (Xie, Du Lisha’s brother-in-law), Zhang Zixian (Liu Hongliang), Song Zu’er (Li Mingzhu), Jiang Long (Dong Erlang/Great Wave), Kasibo (Kaiwen/Kevin), Wang Feifei (Lajiao/Chilli, team leader), Zhang Haiyu (Zhang Cuibiao/Patrick), Liao Bo (Hui/Luffy), Wang Hai (Xiongmao/Jr. Taco), Qiao Zhi (Da Long/Dragon), Yang Xiaojian (She’nan/Snakeman), Zhou Senlin (Senlin/Forest), Yao Shaoqing (Da Ge’er/Prophecy), Zhang Yunchen (Xiaoxi/Sniper), Ye Yin (Wukong, E-mark’s rhythm master), Han Mo (Tangtang/Molly), Qi Xi (Dandan, Ding Lei’s ex-wife), Zhang Youwei (Kangkang), Tian Ye (car-wash owner), Liu Dasuo, Zong Juntao (national championship MCs), Yi Yunhe (driver), Yang Di (Yang Di waxwork), Kong Lianshun (Bai), Aruna (security guard), Huang Jingxing (soloist at Super-Power Dance Party), Wang Di (Ma Da), Dong Borui (Da Fei), Xu Hua’nan (Baozi), Tao Liang (car dealer), Chen Zhixi, Da Peng [Dong Chengpeng] (audience members).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Closing Film), 17 Jun 2023.
Release: China, 28 Jul 2023.