Trending Topic

热搜

China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 120 mins.

Director: Xin Yukun 忻钰坤.

Rating: 8/10.

Mainland actress Zhou Dongyu shines in a quality mainstream drama centred on corporate corruption and online shenanigans.

STORY

Haizhou city, somewhere in southern China, Nov 2019. After Chen Miao (Zhou Dongyu), a former journalist and blogger, and now CEO of Miao’s Whimsy 妙想世界, posts a video of one girl pushing another down the stairs at college, the video goes viral, thanks to her platform having over 6 million followers. Following a storm of online abuse, the girl who committed the “bullying”, Zhang Xiaosui (Zhang Yuwen), jumps off a building and is taken to hospital in a coma. A major scandal erupts around Chen Miao on the day that her mother (Fang Xiaoli) comes to visit her. (Three days earlier during a staff meeting, Chen Miao, in her relentless quest for more followers, had suggested posting a video, recorded on 2 Nov, of one girl pushing another down the stairs at college. As school bullying was always a hot topic online, she had told her staff to hype up the human angles, including the facts that the girl’s father had passed away and her mother was scraping a living selling noodles. Chen Miao’s business partner, He Yan [Song Yang], had urged caution, as the incident had taken place at a training college funded by their company’s main backer, the powerful Hengshi Group. But the ambitious Chen Miao had overruled him.) Instead of apologising, Chen Miao goes on the attack, saying that Zhang Xiaosui is a victim of cyber-bullying. Posing as a journalist, she films a pre-scripted statement by Li Meiyu (Shi Yueling), the girl’s mother, supporting Chen Miao’s posting. Afterwards, Chen Miao gives her a “donation”. He Yan is appalled by Chen Miao’s behaviour. Next evening, Chen Miao accepts a top e-media award on behalf of her company, which has only been in business for just over a year. At the gathering she again discusses with Hengshi Group rep Yue Peng (Yuan Hong) the possibility of a capital increase to fund her future plans for the platform. Back at her office she opens a package in which is a signed copy of a book she once wrote, Rules 规则, sent to her by Zhang Xiaosui on 7 Nov, just before her attempted suicide. (Inside the book, Zhang Xiaosui had written how “you are all wrong”, and how on 1 Nov she had apparently been set up by classmate Yu Tian [Mi La], via a text message, to seem to be moonlighting as a prostitute. When she had confronted Yu Tian next day at college, Yu Tian had denied ever sending her a text message, but Zhang Xiaosui had pushed her down the stairs in anger. Zhang Xiaosui had written that she blamed everything on Wang Shimin [Chen Xuming], chairman of Hengshi Group, who had raped her after a charity event on 8 Oct, and subsequently tried to blacken her name. The rape had been facilitated by Wang Shimin’s secretary, Ai Mi [Ke Yu].) Next day Chen Miao questions the college head, Yan Yusheng (Tao Hai), and Yu Tian, but learns nothing more. (A week earlier, Yue Peng had visited Chen Miao and asked for her help in using the video to blacken the name of Zhang Xiaosui, who he said was trying to disgrace Wang Shimin’s name. Yue Peng had hinted this would help Chen Miao’s case for getting a capital increase from Hengshi Group.) Chen Miao tells Yue Peng she knows that Zhang Xiaosui was raped by Wang Shimin and that Yue Peng set her, Chen Miao, up with the video. On 11 Nov Chen Miao shows her staff the book, but all agree that it cannot be used as proof against Wang Shimin, who could easily destroy Chen Miao’s company. That evening Chen Miao is summoned by Yue Peng, who agrees to the capital increase if she drops her accusations. She says she wants a public apology from Wang Shimin, and refuses to back down. Next day she posts Zhang Xiaosui’s testimony online. She is immediately forced to resign by Yue Peng, and leaves with the words, “Tell your chairman this is just the beginning!” He Yan is left in charge of the company, under Yue Peng’s supervision; but three staffers – the loyal Hu Qiao (Shi Rui), onetime paparazzo Gong Wei (Wang Hao) and intern Wen Ni (Zhong Chenyao) – join Chen Miao in her battle against the mighty Hengshi Group.

REVIEW

An ambitious blogger takes on the corporate might of her onetime backer in Trending Topic 热搜, a rich mix of online shenanigans, corporate corruption and moral conundra that gives Mainland actress Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨, 31, one of the best roles of her career, as well as confirming writer-director Xin Yukun 忻钰坤, 39, a considerable talent with only his third feature. Though the characters are largely familiar stereotypes, the messaging sometimes a bit too obvious, and the ending is never really in doubt, the film doesn’t pretend to be anything other than quality entertainment and is superbly mounted as a creepy, clinically-cool drama-thriller. Despite this, it failed at the box office with a lame RMB63 million, maybe because Zhou is not a box-office draw on her own and maybe because it critiques the same demographic (25-35, aka Gen-90) it’s principally aimed at.

The most mainstream of Xin’s features so far, after his arty-indie black comedy The Coffin in the Mountain 殡棺 (2014, released in China as Deep in the Heart 心迷宫) and engrossing drama Wrath of Silence 暴烈无声 (2017), Topic still avoids bolting on any action sequences, and succeeds totally on the strength of its performances and screenplay. The latter is especially well constructed in its choreography of the main characters and the way in which some are kept in the background until they are needed to push the drama forward. With all the plot reversals, and a running time of two hours, there’s an inevitable dip in tension around the halfway point; but in the long run this works in the film’s favour, as it quickly recovers and builds to a swift and satisfying conclusion to all the twists and turns.

Though Coffin was let down by its over-arty direction, the quality of its screenplay was never in doubt – a meticulously constructed brainteaser about death, deception and sex in a small village. Wrath, centred on an irascible miner’s search for his missing son, had an equally well-tooled, rigorous script, and though Xin takes no writing credit for Topic (a project that was brought to him) his influence is visible in its clean dramatic lines and chess-like construction. All three of Xin’s features only gradually reveal their secrets as layers of deception are peeled away, onion-like; and like Wrath, Topic is centred on a head-to-head battle between two equally stubborn types convinced of their own righteousness.

The twist in Topic is that the heroine is hardly an angel. Initially portrayed as an unsympathetic, career-driven egomaniac – all big shades, cool swishy clothes and Americano coffees – who’s quite prepared to leave her mother at the roadside when business suddenly calls, Chen Miao (Zhou) is the archetypical Mainland metropolitan yuppie. A onetime blogger, journalist and author – whose books include one called Rules 规则, literally “Rules and Regulations”, not exactly high on her list of priorities – 30-something Chen Miao has co-founded an online platform with old college pal He Yan (Song Yang 宋洋, the short-fused lead in Wrath, here subtly underplaying throughout) that has gained over 6 million followers in only a year or so. Ever-ambitious, she instructs her staff to hype up a video of schoolgirl bullying – which goes viral thanks to her platform but then appears to lead to the bully’s attempted suicide. Instead of apologising, Chen Miao goes on the attack, blaming cyber-bullying rather than her post. But then she learns the truth behind the whole event.

Chen Miao’s sudden conversion, barely half-an-hour into the movie, from career bitch to justice warrior is a generic twist that actually works, largely thanks to Zhou’s performance. In what might be said to be her first really grown-up role, the diminutive, baby-faced actress comes across convincingly in the early stages as a hard-nosed executive, thanks to clever costuming, make-up and camera angles, as well as Zhou’s clipped delivery. Her conversion is believable because Zhou retains Chen Miao’s ambitious side but simply calls up the vulnerability that has marked so many of her performances over the years.

In one of the film’s strongest sequences, around the 40-minute mark, where she faces off against her corporate enemy (played with silky relish by Yuan Hong 袁弘, largely a TV actor), Zhou expertly juggles stubbornness and vulnerability to mislead both the viewer and her opponent, while the real villain and his compliant secretary hover as shadows in the background. In scenes like this, the ice-cool widescreen photography by d.p. Liu Yizeng 刘懿增 (A or B 幕后玩家, 2018; Lost in Russia 囧妈, 2020; Bath Buddy 沐浴之王, 2020; The Door Lock 门锁, 2021) really comes into its own, along with the minimalist art direction by Zhao Xuehao 赵学昊 (Sheep without a Shepherd 误杀, 2019), to create a sense of corporate threat.

Although it’s never mentioned, there’s another underlying frisson to all the skullduggery in that the film is set in Nov 2019, just days before society is to be walloped by the Covid pandemic. For Chinese viewers especially, the drama plays out as a tussle on a precipice that is about to collapse anyway. It’s just one more layer in the screenplay, credited to Ye Qing 业青 (writer and editor of Love & Swatow 鮀•恋, 2012), Yang Weiwei 杨薇薇 (Love for Life 最爱, 2011; Sheep without a Shepherd; Soul Snatcher 亦狐书生, 2020) and Xu Xiaohu 徐小虎, that despite being built from familar elements still engrosses on a human level. Some viewers may be disappointed that, though the film attacks manipulators of social media, and praises personal courage against crippling odds, there’s no overt criticism of the role that online media plays in people’s lives. But this is hardly surprising in such an internet-obsessed society like China’s and in a movie that itself is partly funded by a large online platform.

The challenge throughout, especially for Xin, is to make an involving drama at a human level out of people looking at screens, tapping keys and talking about hits – given that such subject matter is hardly new in Mainland cinema. That he does so is a tribute not just to the script and performances but also to his assured technique, which carries the viewer with it, and especially the editing by Hu Shuzhen 胡树真 (who also cut Wrath) that’s unflashily nervy.

The film’s Chinese title literally means “Hot Search”, as in a popular online topic. Hot Topic would be a better English title than the current unsexy one.

CREDITS

Presented by iQiyi Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Beijing United Entertainment Partners Culture & Media (CN), Eastern Grace Film (Beijing) (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Zhongming Shengshi (Shenzhen) Film Group (CN), Phoenix Legend Films (CN). Produced by iQiyi Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Beijing United Entertainment Partners Culture & Media (CN).

Script: Ye Qing, Yang Weiwei, Xu Xiaohu. Photography: Liu Yizeng. Editing: Hu Shuzhen. Music: Li Heng. Art direction: Zhao Xuehao. Costumes: Wang Mingming. Styling: Tang Ning. Sound: Long Xiaozhu, Zhang Jinyan. Visual effects: Zhao Yu. Executive direction: Zhang Jian.

Cast: Zhou Dongyu (Chen Miao), Song Yang (He Yan), Yuan Hong (Yue Peng), Wang Hao (Gong Wei), Tao Hai (Yan Yusheng, college head), Shi Rui (Hu Qiao), Wang Shuo (Xia Sanbao), Mi La [Jiang Xule] (Yu Tian), Zhang Yuwen (Zhang Xiaosui), Zhong Chenyao (Wen Ni/Winnie, intern), Shi Yueling (Li Meiyu, Zhang Xiaosui’s mother), Fang Xiaoli (Li Lifang, Chen Miao’s mother), Fan Yilin (Zhen Yuwen/Zhen Xi, nurse), Ke Yu (Ai Mi/Amy, Wang Shimin’s secretary), Chen Xuming (Wang Shimin).

Premiere: First Film Festival (Closing Film), 31 Jul 2023.

Release: China, 30 Nov 2023.