Premarital Examination
婚前故事
China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 99 mins.
Director: Guo Tingbo 郭廷波.
Rating: 5/10.
Charming collection of meet-cute tales is undercut by moments of official heavyhandedness in the script.
STORY
China. The Mid-1980s. In a small northern town, Chen Wei (Wei Daxun) is a happy-go-lucky layabout in his early 20s with big dreams but all talk. His father (Luo Jingmin) wants to move out of their old house and get a modern flat but is told by Guo (Li Guoqing), a local official, that Chen Wei must get married before they can qualify. One day Chen Wei meets Hua’er (Han Xue), a slightly older woman from the south who’s been working in a factory canteen for three years to earn some money and settle down back home. They go on a date and spend all night in a videotheque. Next morning he impulsively suggests they get married, and steals his household registration book from his father. But at the marriage bureau they’re told they first need to have a medical examination, which Hua’er is loath to do. The Late 1990s. At a Hakka tulou 土楼 in Fujian province, Ye Na (Yu Wenxia) arrives back from the US to introduce her fiance, Chinese-speaking aviation researcher Dennis (Robert Cuenca), to her extended family, who have laid on a celebration. Dennis is uncomfortable with all the traditional customs he has to submit to, but he’s finally approved by Li Na’s great-uncle (Li Yan) after his “premarital examination” comes to an end. The Early 20th Century. In Jinzhong village, southern China, Auntie Zhang (Tang Xiping) tries to act as matchmaker between her niece Fang (Tong Yixuan), a young widow with two children to raise, and shy, impoverished farmer Niu (Han Wenliang), who’s too proud to accept any help from a governmental poverty-alleviation scheme offered by the village chief (Xie Jianfeng). Niu finally promises to give Fang his most prized possession – a cow – if she decides to accept him. After handing over the cow, the two go on an extended date in the countryside, en route to having a medical examination in the nearest big town.
REVIEW
Despite its rather off-putting English title, Premarital Examination 婚前故事 is a largely charming light comedy that bundles together three meet-cute short stories in which the payoff centres on the Mainland’s once-compulsory medical check-up. This third theatrical feature by Chongqing-born film-maker Guo Tingbo 郭廷波 – after the youth musical We Are Young 街舞小子 (2014) and glossy romance You Forget All I Remember 37次想你 (2014) – is let down by a vapid central story involving a Chinese woman and her foreign fiance, and by a rather finger-wagging tone. However, it’s played with a lot of charm by its semi-name cast and directed with visual precision by Guo – though not enough to rescue it from weedy box office of only RMB1.5 million. It’s typical of the type of film that was once a mainstay of Mainland production but nowadays more often ends up on TV.
Guo, 42, studied direction at Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama, graduating in 2006; he’s worked as a writer and/or director in TV drama and theatre, as well as film, and his experience shows in Premarital‘s mounting, as well as its performances. Widescreen photography by d.p. Xie Jianfeng 谢戬烽 (What a Day! 有完没完, 2017) is always well-composed and easy on the eye, especially in the middle story set in a tulou 土楼 in Zhangzhou, Fujian province, and in the final story Xie’s photography of landscape combines memorably with haunting music by Gao Xun 高勋. Period art direction and costuming are on the nose in a discreet way.
Chemistry between the players also makes up for the script’s flimsiness. The opening story, set during the mid-1980s, owes a lot to the fresh playing between the always classy Han Xue 韩雪 (Deadly Will 囧探佳人, 2011; Dating Fever 我为相亲狂, 2013; but better known for her TV work) and always bright Wei Daxun 魏大勋 (The Light 减法人生, 2016; Somewhere Winter 大约在冬季, 2019; Begin, Again 亲爱的 新年好, 2019), with their age difference adding a touch of spice – Han, 37, plays a woman over 30 while Wei, 31, plays an under-30. Rightly, this segment gets the main, central panel on the film’s poster. In the final story, set early this century in the countryside, there’s equally good chemistry, if more quirky, between Tong Yixuan 童苡萱 (Innocent Prisoners 无辜囚徒, 2020) as a young widow with kids and Han Wenliang 韩文亮 as a shy and impoverished farmer: the showpiece, in which they go on an extended date in the countryside, is like an entire courtship squeezed into a single day. Only in the middle story does the lead chemistry seem forced, with ex-beauty queen Yu Wenxia 于文霞 and Spanish-born martial artist Robert Cuenca 罗伟 as an engaged couple coming from the US to meet her extended family.
That same segment is also the flimsiest, with laboured jokes about a westerner adjusting to mosquitoes and squat toilets, plus the extraordinary idea that a foreigner who can speak fluent Chinese would carp so much about local customs. Though the segment is almost a commercial for Hakka traditions, the word is never mentioned in the entire story, which presents them simply as “Chinese”. It’s one of several moments in the film – from a running subtext about education, through an anti-smoking plug in the final episode, to the importance of health checkups – that smack of official heavyhandedness and take the shine off the film’s easy charm.
The Chinese title simply means “Premarital Stories”; the rather un-sexy English one is a translation of the production title, 婚前检查. The film was shot in spring 2018 and passed for release a year later, but only made it into cinemas in late 2020. For the record, mandatory health checks prior to marriage were abolished in the Mainland in 2003.
CREDITS
Presented by Zhejiang Dongyang Jiucai Film & TV Culture Media (CN). Produced by Zhejiang Dongyang Jiucai Film & TV Culture Media (CN).
Script: Guo Tingbo. Story supervision: Wang Zishuo. Photography: Xie Jianfeng. Editing: Liu Lei. Music: Gao Xun. Music production: Li Ruoxi. Song music: Gao Xun. Lyrics: Li Ruoxi. Art direction: Wu Xingguang. Costumes: Wang Honghe. Styling: Zhao Pan. Sound: Liu Fang, Zhu Qianqian. Executive direction: Li Zongqiang.
Cast: Han Xue (Hua’er), Wei Daxun (Chen Wei), Yu Wenxia (Ye Na), Robert Cuenca (Dennis), Han Wenliang (Niu), Tong Yixuan (Fang), Luo Jingmin (Chen Wei’s father), Tang Xiping (Zhang, Fang’s aunt), Li Yan (Ye Na’s great-uncle), Li Guoqing (Guo, town official), Wang Xinyu (black-car driver), Xie Jianfeng (village chief).
Release: China, 13 Nov 2020.