Dude’s Manual

脱单告急

China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 100 mins.

Director: Ke Mengrong 柯孟融.

Rating: 8/10.

Sparky student sex comedy, topped by a barnstorming performance from actress Zhong Chuxi.

STORY

Tianjin municipality, northern China, summer 2017. Three months before graduating from Haihang University, geeky He Xiaoyang (Dong Zijian) still doesn’t have a girlfriend – unlike his two roommates, porn enthusiast Zhou Zhengbo (Yuan Fufu) and rich kid Ren Yi (Jin Jin). Then at sports day he sees the super-athletic, “cool goddess” Guan Xin (Zhong Chuxi) and is thunderstruck. At a drunken party that night she throws up over him in the gents and is photographed on the floor with him by campus gossip queen Shen Miao (Liu Mengmeng). Publicly shamed to be seen with such a geek, Guan Xin decides to be He Xiaoyang’s “love guru” and challenges his two pals to find him a girlfriend she’s worthy of being challenged by. She nominates the only two students she considers in her league: second-year medical student Xu Ruonan (Yin Xue) – with whom He Xiaoyang fails miserably – and her only true rival, music student Li Shushu (Chun Xia), who’s dated no one in four years. At a house party He Xiaoyang accidentally hits it off with Li Shushu, who turns out to be socially shy. However, when Guan Xin is giving him more advice over lunch one day, she suddenly loses all her confidence when greeted by an older man (Yang Sen) and refuses to talk about him to He Xiaoyang. And as He Xiaoyang makes progress with Li Shushu, Guan Xin appears to become jealous. Things come to a head when everyone flies off on a graduation trip to the seaside and, when Li Shushu makes a direct play for He Xiaoyang, Guan Xin breaks off relations with him, saying he was never her friend.

REVIEW

A barnstorming performance by Mainland actress Zhong Chuxi 钟楚曦 helps make Dude’s Manual 脱单告急 one of the most fun films of the year. Starting off as a wacky student sex comedy and then morphing into a kind of rom-com, it’s lively paced, has a likeable cast and is entirely typical of its director, Taiwan-born Ke Mengrong 柯孟融, in doing exactly what it says on the can. It may only be a throwaway youth movie, and one with a few shades of South Korean hit My Sassy Girl 엽기적인 그녀 (2001), but it brushes up and reassembles many of the genre’s cliches into a sparky, slickly packaged entertainment whose cast give it their all and seem utterly in synch.

Set and shot in Tianjin, and entirely Mainland financed, it’s only the second full-scale feature by Ke to reach the screen, following his entertaining, if bargain-basement, Invitation Only 绝命派对 (2009), billed as the island’s first slasher horror. As far as the mainstream is concerned, Ke’s problem has always been to harness his larky invention into a more regular format, but in Dude’s Manual he’s got solid support in that direction from two experienced pals, Taiwan-born director/producer Chen Zhengdao 陈正道 [Leste Chen] – the only film-maker of his generation to forge a serious career across the straits (Love on Credit 幸福额度, 2011; Miss Granny 重返20岁, 2015) – and Chen’s frequent scriptwriter, Mainlander Ren Peng 任鹏.

Now in his mid-30s, Ke has had a scatter-gun career since his first film, the short Ghost Print 鬼印 (2004). As well as working as a d.p. and directing music videos and film trailers, most of his output has been away from the big screen, notably with the LeTV release The Bendover 《率性生活》之末日逆袭 (2012), a series of five crazy shorts, made with Chen and Ren. His second theatrical feature, A Choo 我的情敌是⌈超人⌋, shot in summer 2013 and originally set to be released in Oct 2014, is still on the shelf due to Taiwan actor Ke Zhendong 柯震东 being arrested in Beijing for drug use in Aug 2014. [It was finally released in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but not the Mainland, in Jul 2020 under the new Chinese title 打喷嚏.]

Though treated very differently, Dude’s Manual has a basically similar theme to A Choo of a geek and a beauty, in this case a university virgin thunderstruck by a Cool Goddess who then becomes his “love guru”. The ending is visible from the first reel but Ren’s script creates lots of false trails up to the lively finale, and even a deeper reason for the Cool Goddess to take an interest in him. The campus setting is a convenient way of throwing the various characters together rather than just an excuse to make another youth movie.

From her first appearance, limbering up with a split kick at a campus sports day, Zhong burns up the screen as the super-confident Guan Xin who, after being accidentally caught in an embarrassing situation with the geeky He Xiaoyang, decides to rescue her reputation by fixing him up with a girl who’s worthy of challenging her. En route, He Xiaoyang’s roommates – a porno addict and a rich kid – are corralled into the plan, with their own love lives providing sub-plots. The humour is all very hormonal and laddish – and the development is hardly original – but the movie is raised above a spotty teenage comedy by Zhong’s powerhouse, in-charge performance.

It’s quite a change from Zhong’s more graceful big-screen debut in Youth 芳华 (2017) – as the heroine’s friend and film’s narrator – after a burgeoning career in TV drama. The Guangzhou-born, former ballet student, now 25, scales back her character in the softer middle section but returns to form in the “flying-machine” finale which, though totally formulaic, is also joyously fun. As the geek, boyish-faced Dong Zijian 董子健, also 25, who’s played this kind of role before (Young Love Lost 少年巴比伦, 2015; Duckweed 乘风破浪, 2017), is well cast, underplaying with Zhong but sympathetically with 26-year-old actress Chun Xia 春夏 (the revelation of Port of Call 踏雪寻梅, 2015), as the shy music student whom he’s ordered to date. Supporting performances are all in tune, from Yuan Fufu 袁福福 and Jin Jin 靳锦 as the geek’s lubricious roommates to newcomer Yin Yuhang 尹雨航 and Wu Yuyao 吴昱瑶 (Singing When We’re Young 初恋未满, 2013) as their no-nonsense girls.

Technical support is strong from several Chen regulars – Taiwan d.p. Jiang Minzhong 江敏忠 (Love on Credit), veteran Hong Kong editor Li Dongquan 李栋全 [Wenders Li] and Taiwan stylist Ye Zhuzhen (Miss Granny). Despite its considerable merits, the film hardly got Mainland audiences excited, scoring a lame RMB35 million. Shot in Tianjin, southeast of Beijing, in spring 2016, the film was formerly known as 完全男人手册 (“The Complete Male Handbook”); the final Chinese title loosely translates as “Virgin Emergency!”.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Magilm Media Share Holding (CN), Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN), Xiaomi Pictures (CN), Zhejiang San-Le Films (CN), Zhejiang Dongyang DMG Entertainment & Media (CN), Dadi Century (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Beijing Magilm Media Share Holding (CN).

Script: Ren Peng. Photography: Jiang Minzhong. Editing: Ke Mengrong, Li Dongquan [Wenders Li]. Music: Wang Rongyi. Art direction: Fang Shengxiang. Styling: Ye Zhuzhen. Sound: Zhao Ying, Lin Siyu. Special effects: Zhang Chaoming. Visual effects: Tomotoshi Shigeharu (Sol VFX).

Cast: Dong Zijian (He Xiaoyang/Air Pump Boy), Zhong Chuxi (Guan Xin), Chun Xia (Li Shushu), Yuan Fufu (Zhou Zhengbo/Johnny/Professor), Jin Jin (Ren Yi/Moneybags), Yin Yuhang (Sun Xiaohui), Wu Yuyao (Jiang Ping), Liu Mengmeng (Shen Miao/Little Horn), Xi Jingyan (Xiaobai), Chen Yanting (music-club head), Yin Xue (Xu Ruonan), Zhang Mengyuan (strong woman), Liu Chao (film-club head), Yang Kaidi (Marry), Zhang Yue (junior female schoolmate), Tong Mengqi (female classmate), Gao Weihao (Bao Chen), Zhang Menglin (cool guy), Yang Sen (Guan Xin’s high-school teacher), Liao Juan (Guan Xin’s high-school friend).

Premiere: Beijing Film Festival, 15 Apr 2018.

Release: China, 20 Apr 2018.