Mozart from Space
外太空的莫扎特
China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 135 mins.
Director: Chen Sicheng 陈思诚.
Rating: 4/10.
A way over-long, way over-blown yarn about a teenager, his naggy dad, and an alien that looks like a panda doll.
STORY
Beijing, the present day. Ren Xiaotian (Rong Zishan) is a 13-year-old pupil at Luhe Junior High School who lives with his divorced father Ren Dawang (Huang Bo), an ex-rock musician, now insurance salesman, who’s always pressuring his son to practise the piano so he can become famous like Lang Lang. However, Ren Xiaotian is more interested in astronomy and aliens, and is always daydreaming in class, much to the annoyance of teacher Deng (Jia Bing). One evening, after buying a homemade panda doll from his younger half-brother Zhao Xiaomo (Xiao Li Zhenzhen) – the child of his mother (Mei Ting) and her wealthy second husband (Yu Bo) – he suddenly imagines it’s talking to him in his room. His father thinks he’s mad, and just trying to get out of piano practice. But then the panda doll starts playing Mozart wonderfully – which his father hears in the next room and is so delighted he gets stone drunk. The doll (voiced by Chen Hao) tells Ren Xiaotian he’s come from outer space to protect him, and Ren Xiaotian names it “Mozart”. When Mozart insists on accompanying Ren Xiaotian to school the next day, the boy hides him in his backpack and under his desk in class. His best pal Xue Xihao (Wang Yiming) suspects something, so Ren Xiaotian lets him in on the sectret. Mozart defends Ren Xiaotian against school bully Ma Yuan (Fang Zhou) and later helps his football team beat one led by school braggart (and female idol) Paul Ouyang (Huang Xingyuan). Mozart again humiliates Paul Ouyang when he’s trying to chat up female pupil Ding Jieling (Huang Yang Tiantian), a newcomer to Beijing, who then joins Ren Xiaotian and Xue Xihao in sharing the secret about Mozart. However, Mozart then misreads Ren Xiaotian’s exasperation with his father always standing in the way of his interest in astronomy; he sets about trying to kill Ren Dawang, as part of his mission to protect the boy. Ren Xiaotian manages to save his father, but then needs Mozart to help rescue the simple-minded Ma Yuan, who’s been hoodwinked by a group of con artists, led by Niu Yuxia (Yao Chen) who poses as an alien princess from the Galactic Alliance and has set up the Outer Space Association on Earth for (fee-paying) believers. Ren Dawang promises his son that he’ll let him become an astronomer if he can make it to finals of a local piano competition, so Mozart gets to work on making that happen. But Mozart’s time on Earth is running out, and Niu Yuxia and her two associates (Xu Juncong, Yu Yang), realising Mozart is a real alien, plan to kidnap him.
REVIEW
Pausing for breath (and hopefully fresh inspiration) in his seemingly endless but mega-profitable Detective Chinatown 唐人街探案 franchise – so far three features, 2015-21, and two TVDs, 2020-24, with other spin-offs like a youth prequel and a 1900 period version reportedly in the works – tireless actor-turned-writer/director/producer Chen Sicheng 陈思诚, 46, took a left turn with Mozart in Space 外太空的莫扎特, in which an extra-terrestrial befriends a boy on Earth. This E.T., who looks like a panda doll, hasn’t been left behind by his pals but has come especially to “protect” a 13-year-old and help him become an astronomer rather than (as his dad wants) a famous concert pianist like Lang Lang 郎朗. It’s a cute, if not very original, idea that tries to pitch itself at an audience of all ages, fails, and ends up as a way over-long and over-blown yarn with scarcely any plot – or strong enough performances – to sustain its 2¼ hours running time. Shot in autumn 2020 and released two years later, it crashed at the box office with a barely polite (for a Chen production) RMB224 million.
After a decade as an actor, Chen turned to writing and directing features with Beijing Love Story 北京爱情故事 (2014), a likeable, if not very original, relationships movie made up of five vignettes sustained by a strong name cast. At their best (say, the first Detective Chinatown, 2015), his films are marked by easy, sympathetic playing and well-constructed scripts, and his influence can be seen on some of the many recent movies on which he’s been a writer (Lost in the Stars 消失的她, 2022; Endless Journey 三大队, 2023) or just creative producer 监制 (Sheep without a Shepherd 误杀, 2019; Fireflies in the Sun 误杀II, 2021). He’s also clearly at his best in twist-filled whodunits or crime movies, as well as remakes of foreign movies – none of which is Mozart from Space, despite its slight similarity with a well-known US film of four decades ago.
Mozart starts as it means to continue, with two impressively mounted sequences (a rising shot outside a block of flats showing different living rooms, and a scene of mass gymnastics at a high school) that tell the viewer this is going to be a BIG movie. And the visual effects are, undeniably, top-notch – not just the talking baby panda but also several other sequences (e.g. a flying Leggo ship) that take the film into pure fantasy territory. However, as becomes quickly evident, its content – apart from the extra-terrestrial panda – is nothing new: familiar characters like a dreaming teen hero (fresh-faced Rong Zishan 荣梓杉, from leukaemia movie Let Life Be Beautiful 再见吧！少年, 2020), his goofy best pal (child star/singer Wang Yiming 王一鸣), a pretty co-pupil (Huang Yang Tiantian 黄杨钿甜, Beating Heart 世界上最爱我的人, 2022), a spleen-filled teacher (comedian Jia Bing 贾冰, one of almost 20 well-known cameos), a preening student (child star/singer Huang Xingyuan 黄星羱), and so on.
Apart from the running joke of the alien helping Our Shy Hero to find his way in life, the only major development the six writers could come up with is a late-on subplot featuring some confidence tricksters pretending to be aliens. Though it’s scrappily developed, almost as an afterthought, it does provide the film’s most memorable performance – by Yao Chen 姚晨, as a conwoman with a killer Sichuan accent who claims to be a 28,000-year-old princess from the Galactic Alliance. If there was a picture to steal, Yao would have stolen it. But her few OTT minutes on screen – Yao is already known for mimicking regional accents, e.g. Monster Hunt 捉妖记, 2015, MBA Partners 梦想合伙人, 2016 – are still worth all of the repetitive over-emoting by comedian Huang Bo 黄渤 as the young hero’s naggy dad.
A tag scene with Yao at the end seems to set up a sequel – and Chen did, in fact, announce that he wanted to do an “outer-space trilogy” centred on child-parent relationships, via the arts. Mozart from Space was to be followed by Chopin from Space 外太空的肖邦 and Monet from Space 外太空的莫奈 – though this announcement was made in 2020, long before Mozart had been released to poor box office.
Aside from the excellent VFX, other technical credits are elegantly smooth. Much play is made throughout of Mozart’s Turkish March and his arrangement of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, plus the Johnny Mercer-Henry Mancini song Moon River, unfortunately rendered in an often inaudible whisper by Mainland songstress Sa Ji 萨吉.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing As One Pictures (CN), Wanda Pictures (CN), Alibaba Pictures (Beijing) (CN), China Film (CN), Shanghai Film Group (CN). Produced by As One (Tianjin) Pictures (CN).
Script: Chen Sicheng, Chen Siyu, Fan Kaihua, Quan Lixuan, Tang Honghan, Yang Muzi. Photography: Liu Yin. Editing: Tang Hongjia. Music: Hu Xiao’ou. Art direction: Wang Kuo. Costumes: Huang Junhua. Styling: Liang Tingting. Sound: Zhao Nan, Yang Jiang. Action: Xie Ruichuan. Visual effects: Xu Mingjun, Li Shuai (MoreVFX). Executive direction: Zhang Zhe.
Cast: Huang Bo (Ren Dawang), Rong Zishan (Ren Xiaotian), Yao Chen (Niu Yuxia), Huang Yang Tiantian (Ding Jieling), Wang Yiming (Xue Xihao), Huang Xingyuan (Ouyang Baoluo/Paul), Fang Zhou (Ma Yuan), Xu Juncong (Scarface), Yu Yang (Slicked-Back Hair), Chen Hao (voice of Mozart; policeman), Fan Wei (Ren Xiaotian’s grandfather), Mei Ting (Ren Xiaotian’s mother), Jia Bing (Deng, teacher), Huang Jue (Ding Jieling’s father), Sang Ping (Ma Yuan’s father), Yi Xiaoxing (judge), Fan Tiantian (Xue Xihao’s mother), Yu Bo (Zhao Xiaomo’s father), Wang Ning (Mao Ningning, piano teacher), Zhou Chuchu (female believer), Li Mingxuan (policeman), Yang Demin (manager), Zhang Yu (astronomy club president), Yin Junzheng (judge), Yang Jinci (father of twins), Lang Lang (himself, judge), Xiao Li Zhenzhen (Zhao Xiaomo), Qian Zhongyuan (Ma, driver), Wang Yilun (piano instructor), Yang Pu (football coach), Jia Hongwei, Li Zan.
Release: China, 15 Jul 2022.