Tiny Times 2

小时代  青木时代

China/Taiwan, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 115 mins.

Director: Guo Jingming 郭敬明.

Associate director: Gao Bingquan 高炳权.

Rating: 6/10.

More of the same glossy nonsense but with a less infectious sense of fun.

STORY

Shanghai, the present day, June. Friends since high-school days, Lin Xiao (Yang Mi), finance wizard Gu Li (Guo Caijie), clothes designer Nan Xiang (Guo Biting) and tubby Tang Wanru (Xie Yilin) are all studying for their finals. The only one not stressed in the flat they share is rich fashionista Gu Li, who has already finished the courses for both of her majors. She is, however, going through a frosty period with her boyfriend Gu Yuan (Ke Zhendong), who is under pressure from his snobbish mother, Ye Chuanping (Wang Lin), to marry Yuan Yi (Ding Qiaowei), the daughter of his family’s business partner. She’s also repeatedly being asked by Xi Cheng (Jiang Chao), Nan Xiang’s ex, for money. During the Dragon Boat Festival, on the last day of her internship at style bible ME Magazine as a personal assistant to chief editor Gong Ming (Feng Xiaoyue), Lin Xiao goes round as usual to his flat to collect the latest article from his younger step-brother and star columnist Zhou Chongguang (Chen Xuedong). Lin Xiao doesn’t realise Zhou Chongguang, who’s always late with his copy, has the beginnings of serious illness. Despite liking Zhou Chongguang, she’s still in love with her old boyfriend Jian Xi (Li Yueming), with whom she broke up after his affair with Lin Quan (Yang Yang), but he’s now being pursued by another girl and keeps putting Lin Xiao off. When Xi Cheng comes to the girls’ flat one day, looking for Nan Xiang, he’s told she’s out and Gu Li tells him to get lost. Xi Cheng responds by reminding Gu Li of how he and she once slept together behind Nan Xiang’s back. Hearing this, Lin Xiao is appalled but forgives Gu Li. As graduation day approaches, Lin Xiao says she’s been offered a staff job at ME Magazine and Nan Xiang has found an internship at a clothing workshop. Gu Li is busy arranging a splashy dinner for her birthday, at which she also hopes to fix Tang Wanru up with her dream man, Wei Hai (Du Tianhao), a former boyfriend of Nan Xiang. However, the dinner turns into a disaster, climaxing in Nan Xiang pouring wine over Gu Li and walking out. The same night, Zhou Chongguang is admitted to hospital with gastric cancer and Gu Li’s father is killed in a car accident while rushing to her birthday dinner. To her stepmother’s annoyance, Gu Li inherits the family business – but then discovers that ME Magazine‘s parent company, Constanly, represented by control-freaky Gong Ming, wants to buy a majority share.

REVIEW

Shot back-to-back with Tiny Times 1 小时代 (2013), with the same cast and crew, and brought forward to an earlier release date following the first film’s runaway hit in the Mainland, China-Taiwan co-production Tiny Times 2 小时代  青木时代 is more of the same glossy nonsense but with a less infectious sense of fun with its fashion-plate, self-absorbed characters. Continuing the adaptation of his own hugely successful series of novels (2008-11), first-time writer-director Guo Jingming 郭敬明, 30, who also owns several teenie magazines, weaves a fast-moving, complex series of subplots involving four girlfriends and the various metrosexual men in their lives but rarely achieves the same kind of over-the-top trashiness that made the first film such an enjoyable ride. TT2 takes itself much more seriously as friendships and relationships go even more pear-shaped than before, and the audience is actually asked to sympathise with the emotional problems of the young, terminally shallow protagonists.

With the comic role of style anti-diva Xie Yilin 谢依霖, aka Miss Lin (hold住姐 ), scaled back, and another of the girly quartet, quarter-American Guo Biting 郭碧婷 [Bea Hayden], virtually disappearing after the first 40 minutes, the movie is largely carried this time by top-billed Mainland hottie Yang Mi 杨幂 and Taiwan’s Guo Caijie 郭采洁 [Amber Kuo]. With Yang also doing less of her klutzy schtick and more as the narrator-cum-voice of reason, it’s really Guo’s film – and the 27-year-old Taiwan actress-singer, previously in more tomboyish roles (Au revoir Taipei 一页台北, 2009; Close to You 近在咫尺, 2010; David Loman 大尾鲈鳗, 2013), contributes some real style as the rich fashionista of the group. With a champagne flute permanently attached to her hand, and an ethereal disdain for her friends’ problems, Guo’s Gu Li animates the movie from start to finish, climaxing in her swanning into her ex’s wedding reception and taking over the proceedings. This finale is no substitute for the fashion-show one of TT1, but it does recapture some of the first film’s operatic silliness.

While the cute girls engage in a lot of hugging, crying and cuddling, the pretty boys (played by a mixture of young Taiwan and Mainland faces) are even more just window-dressing here – as befits a movie aimed at teenies that grafts Taiwan metrosexuality on to Shanghainese money, bigness and style. It’s all sexy but also sexless, with much talk of love and coupling but neither ever shown. The look is the thing, and the largely Taiwan crew, led by d.p. Che Liangyi 车亮逸 [Randy Che], revels in squeezing the last visual drop out of the city’s buildings, lighting, weather and trendy locations to create a wish-fulfilment universe in which true friendship triumphs over life’s vicissitudes. Right.

For the record, both films were shot over a combined 79 shooting days for RMB47 million.

CREDITS

Presented by He Li Chen Guang Media (Beijing) (CN), EE-Media (CN), Star Ritz Productions (TW), H&R Century Pictures (CN), Beijing Forbidden City Film (CN), Le Vision Pictures (Tianjin) (CN), Le Vision Pictures (CN), Shenzhen Desen International Media (CN), Amazing Film Studio (TW), Comic Ritz Film & TV Culture (Beijing) (CN), Mission Media Investment (Shanghai) (CN). Produced by Star Ritz Productions (TW), Desen International Media (CN).

Script: Guo Jingming. Novel: Guo Jingming. Photography: Che Liangyi [Randy Che]. Editing: Gu Xiaoyun. Music: Hou Zhijian. Music direction: Liang Yongtai, Wen Zhen. Production design: Huang Wei [Rosalie Huang]. Art direction: Huang Zhihong. Sound: Du Duzhi. Visual effects: Chen Zhidao (Herbgarden).

Cast: Yang Mi (Lin Xiao), Ke Zhendong (Gu Yuan, Gu Li’s boyfriend), Guo Caijie [Amber Kuo] (Gu Li/Lily), Feng Xiaoyue [Rhydian Vaughan] (Gong Ming, ME Magazine chief editor), Guo Biting [Bea Hayden] (Nan Xiang), Xie Yilin (Tang Wanru/Ruby), Chen Xuedong (Zhou Chongguang, Gong Ming’s younger step-brother), Wang Lin (Ye Chuanping, Gu Yuan’s mother), Li Yueming (Jian Xi, Lin Xiao’s earlier dream man), Shang Kan (Kitty, Gong Ming’s executive assistant), Jiang Chao (Xi Cheng, Nan Xiang’s first love), Du Tianhao (Wei Hai, Tang Wanru’s dream lover), Ding Qiaowei (Yuan Yi, Gu Yuan’s arranged girlfriend), Yang Yang (Lin Quan, Jian Xi’s girlfriend), Zhang Zimu (young Gu Li), Li Chen (driver at Yuan home).

Release: China, 8 Aug 2013; Taiwan, 30 Aug 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 30 Aug 2013.)