The Left Ear

左耳

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 116 mins.

Director: Su Youpeng 苏有朋 [Alec Su].

Rating: 7/10.

Fresh entry in China’s student love genre is a notable directing debut by Taiwan actor Su Youpeng [Alec Su].

STORY

Dongshan county, Fujian province, southern China, 2005, early spring. Since childhood, 17-year-old Li Er (Chen Duling) has been almost completely deaf in her left ear, the one that is closest to the heart and the most suitable for whispered words of love. She is a student at Tianyi High School, where she goes every day with her cousin, You Ta (Hu Xia), who secretly likes her. Li Er, however, holds a torch for handsome fellow student Xu Yi (Yang Yang), whose voice she likes the sound of. Meanwhile, when Li Bala (Ma Sichun), a high-school dropout who works as a sassy singer at the backstreets bar Forget Me, takes a fancy to student Zhang Yang (Ou Hao), the son of a shopkeeper (Cheng Taishen), Zhang Yang tells her she must first ruin the reputation of Xu Yi, without telling her why. Li Bala publicly shames Xu Yi into meeting her, and Li Er is shocked to see the two of them together. Zhang Yang tells Li Bala the reason he hates Xu Yi is because his mother (Jiang Wenli) went off with Xu Yi’s father and she now won’t acknowledge him as her son. When Zhang Yang and Li Bala have a fight, Li Er rescues her and the two women become friends, much to the displeasure of Xu Yi. Even though he is dating Jiang Jiao (Guan Xiaotong), a high-school student from a rich family, Zhang Yang finally goes to bed with Li Bala, who sees him as a ticket out of the sleepy seaside town. Afterwards, however, Li Bala hears some shocking news from Heiren (Duan Bowen), a sleazy habitue of the Forget Me bar who’s always liked her, and tragedy ensues, with Li Er blaming Zhang Yang. Some time later, Li Er enrols at university in Shanghai, where she becomes friends with librarian Lin Lin (Bao Wenjing); meanwhile, Zhang Yang is studying in Beijing, supporting himself by selling clothing online. Jiang Jiao is also in Beijing, about to realise her dream of being a singer; but she and Zhang Yang finally break up. After Li Er discovers Xu Yi working in a bar, he initially rejects her but later asks her to become his girlfriend.

REVIEW

China’s continuing wave of first-love films set in a “simpler” past gets a fresh entry with The Left Ear 左耳, a youth drama that travels from 2005 to the present day and is largely set in the southern province of Fujian. Based on a series of novels by prolific Sichuan writer Rao Xueman 饶雪漫, 42, whose works are also popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the surprise box-office hit also marks the directing debut of Su Youpeng 苏有朋 [Alec Su], 41, a Taiwan-born actor-singer who’s worked a considerable amount in the Mainland from his earliest days as a TV drama star. Working with an experienced technical crew that includes Mainland d.p. Zhao Fei 赵非 (Raise the Red Lantern 大红灯笼高高挂, 1991; Let the Bullets Fly 让子弹飞, 2010), Hong Kong editor Chen Zhiwei 陈志伟 [Andy Chan] (The Longest Nite 暗花, 1997; So Young 致我们终将逝去的青春, 2013) and Chinese American composer Wang Zongxian 王宗贤 [Nathan Wang] (Sophie’s Revenge 非常完美, 2009; No Man’s Land 无人区, 2013), Su has come up with a very smooth package, scripted by Rao and Taiwan actress-writer Li Jiaying 李佳颖 (Campus Confidential 爱情无全顺, 2013), that strongly evokes the setting in pretty but slightly faded Dongshan island and also draws sympathetic performances from his young cast.

The central character is high-school student Li Er, 17 at the start of the film, who’s practically deaf in her left ear – the one that is closest to the heart and traditionally seen as the only one that counts for whispered words of love. This idea doesn’t dominate the film but is referred to at key moments; instead, Li Er is simply the character around whom a mix of characters revolves. Her silent crush on a handsome fellow student, Xu Yi, is also only one of many threads in what is a complex ensemble movie. More important dramatically is her friendship with the sassy, devil-may-care Li Bala, a high-school dropout who works as a singer in a seedy backstreet bar, and Zhang Yang, a shopkeeper’s son who’s self-interestedly dating a fellow student from a wealthy family. When Li Bala makes a direct play for Zhang Yang, he tells her she first has to publicly disgrace Xu Yi, whose father “stole” his mother from him.

The characters’ shifting relationships are set against their youthful desires to get out of the provincial seaside town and make a future in Beijing or Shanghai. But though their paths cross at university and afterwards in those big cities, their hearts remain tied to their home town, where Li Er and Zhang Yang finally resolve their differences and where Li Bala meets her fate. The script packs in an enormous amount of characters and plot threads without generally seeming too rushed, largely thanks to Su’s deft direction, seamless editing by Chen, and the cast’s engaging performances.

The best part, however, is still the first hour, entirely set in provincial Dongshan, beautifully evoked with its back streets and seaside setting by Zhao’s textured widescreen photography. As the characters disperse to Shanghai and Beijing during their university years, the film loses some of its emotional intensity, as well as becoming more of a formulaic entry in the high-school-to-adulthood genre that’s currently popular in Mainland cinema.

It’s a tribute to Su’s handling of the actors that newcomer Chen Duling 陈都灵, 21, who was actually born in Fujian province, manages to make Li Er a sympathetic character despite her fresh-faced, goodie-goodie nature; but on the female side it’s former child actress Ma Sichun 马思纯, 27, who dominates the film as the brazen Li Bala, who flouts convention and seemingly just wants to sleep her way out of town. In many ways she is the key to the whole movie, especially in her unlikely but ultimately very moving friendship with the more fragile Li Er. As the third side of that central triangle, Mainland singer-actor Ou Hao 欧豪 (Hong Kong rom-com Temporary Family 失恋急让, 2014) is surprisingly good as the conflicted Zhang Yang, especially in the film’s second half. Other actors fare less well: Yang Yang 杨洋 (the rich kid in The Unbearable Lightness of Inspector Fan 暴走神探, 2015) is equally colourless here as Li Er’s first crush, and the character of actress Guan Xiaotong 关晓彤 (a rich kid exploited by Zhang Yang) suffers from weak writing.

In a gesture of friendship, actress Zhao Wei 赵薇, who co-starred with Su in the mega-hit TV drama series Princess Returning Pearl 还珠格格 (1998), is seen in the end titles singing the film’s theme song. (Zhao herself debuted as a director with So Young, a more ambitious entry in the same genre as The Left Ear.) Credited with “executive direction” is Taiwan’s Lian Yiqi 连奕琦, whose previous films include the interesting mystery-drama Make Up 命运化妆师 (2011) and the smartly packaged crime comedy Sweet Alibis 甜蜜杀机 (2013), in the latter of which Su starred.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Jiangsu Yilin Entertainment (CN), Shannan Enlight Pictures (CN), Shanghai Xuehe Media (CN). Produced by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN).

Script: Rao Xueman, Li Jiaying. Novels: Rao Xueman. Photography: Zhao Fei. Editing: Chen Zhiwei [Andy Chan], Guo Xuanyu. Music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang]. Title song music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang]. Lyrics: Lin Xi. Vocal: Zhao Wei. Production design: Akatsuka Yoshihito. Art direction: Li Miao. Styling: Chen Leqin. Styling advice: Chen Gufang. Sound: Zhou Lei, Du Duzhi. Visual effects: He Xuesong, Wang Xiaowei, Zhuang Yan. Executive direction: Lian Yiqi.

Cast: Chen Duling (Li Er), Ou Hao (Zhang Yang), Yang Yang (Xu Yi), Ma Sichun (Li Bala), Duan Bowen (Heiren), Hu Xia (You Ta), Guan Xiaotong (Jiang Jiao, Zhang Yang’s girlfriend), Bao Wenjing (Lin Lin), Jiang Wenli (Meijuan, Zhang Yang’s mother), Cheng Taishen (Xu Ruiyang, Xu Yi’s father), Xie Na (jeweller), Fan Ling (Xu Yi’s lover).

Release: China, 24 Apr 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 13 Jul 2015.)