The Last Frenzy
末路狂花钱
China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 105 mins.
Director: Wu Rina 乌日娜.
Rating: 6/10.
Black comedy about a penny-pincher who goes on a spending spree before he dies just about goes the distance thanks to its cast.
STORY
A city in Jilin province, northeast China, the present day. Jia Youwei (Jia Bing), a middle-aged bachelor who lives a highly organised life and was always taught by his parents not to waste money, suddenly discovers he has a brain tumour and only 10 days to live. He decides to sell his flat and, with RMB1 million now in his account, go on a spending spree. He looks up three friends from his youth and invites them to dinner: Sha Baihu (Xiaoshenyang), now the devoted husbnd of a celebrity presenter (Lamuyangzi), Xu Dali (Yu Yang), now a security guard, and Dong Jianfeng (Dong Baoshi), now driving a children’s train round a shopping mall. All of them – for various reasons – decide to join him in his spending spree. He withdraws RMB1 milion in cash and they check into a hotel’s presidential suite, hire an expensive car, and play the slot machines. For a joke, the three friends trick Jia Youwei into visiting a luxury undertaker’s, where he recognises among the sales staff someone he hasn’t seen in over 20 years since high school – the straight-talking, once-tomboyish Wang Xiaoqian (Tan Zhuo). She guesses Jia Youwei is ill, and he confesses the truth, buying a funeral plot in a good location. His savings are now down to RMB432,750. His friends arrange for him to spend an afternoon with Wang Xiaoqian, and the two go on a shopping spree, with him buying her a more feminine wardrobe. They later visit the now-deserted site of their old high school, where some thugs try to extort some money from Wang Xiaoqian to pay off her late husband’s debts. A fight ensues, with Jia Youwei’s friends joining in. Next evening Jia Youwei passes out and is taken to hospital, where the doctor has some news for him.
REVIEW
It took nine people – including Wu Rina 乌日娜, here making her feature debut as a writer-director – to come up with the screenplay of The Last Frenzy 末路狂花钱, but you’d never guess it from the content. A showcase for comedian Jia Bing 贾冰, as a penny-pinching bachelor who goes on a spending spree when he learns he has only 10 days to live, it’s a by-the-numbers black comedy that’s solely driven by its performances rather than anything specially inventive in the script. However, the simple human content, and solid performances, touched a nerve among Mainland audiences, who voted it the clear winner among the May Day holiday releases, with a very nice (but not spectacular) RMB781 million, beating two action movies directed by Hong Kongers, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In 九龙城寨之围城 (RMB683 million) and Formed Police Unit 维和防暴队 (RMB511 million).
Inner Mongolian-born Wu, 36, started as a stage actress in 2009, working with the Beijing comedy troupe Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花. She subsequently turned to making comic mini-dramas, notably Arg! Life 生活对我下手了 (2018) and Arg! Life 2 生活对我下手了2 (2019), both co-directed with Li Yafei 李亚飞 and starring Inner Mongolian comedienne Lamuyangzi 辣目洋子, aka Li Jiaqi 李嘉琦 (who has a small role in Frenzy as a celebrity wife). Wu also goes under the Chinese name Hu Xi 胡析. No names stand out among her eight collaborators on the script; the most influential person on the film was probably veteran comedian/director Ying Da 英达, billed as chief creative producer 总监制, as well as Zhang Li 张莉, a production executive who’s worked on several Ma Hua FunAge movies such as Never Say Die 羞羞的铁拳 (2017) and Moon Man 独行月球 (2022).
Whatever the case, Wu has assembled a strong cast and basically lets them get on with it. Jia, 43, who’s graduated from character to leading roles in recent years, can easily carry a film on his own and needs little direction; here he’s in his element, with plenty of low-key black comedy interrupted by volcanic bursts of energy. As the three boyhood pals who join his spending spree – and give the film most of its character content, as well as a reason to have the preachy third act – blank-faced Xiaoshenyang (The Way of the Bug 猛虫过江, 2018) provides some quiet star power, lantern-faced actor/presenter Yu Yang 于洋 (Another Me 李茂扮太子, 2022) most of the grit, and well-known rapper Dong Baoshi 董宝石 some mild humour. All, like Jia Bing, hail from northeast China – as, too, does one of the Mainland’s most under-rated actresses, Tan Zhuo 谭卓 (Mr. Tree Hello! 树先生, 2011; The Mahjong Box 三缺一, 2016; Dying to Survive 我不是药神, 2018), who livens up what is looking to be a male-dominated movie when she first appears, half-an-hour in, as another long-lost school pal. Playing a straight-talking, onetime tomboy, Tan, 40, brings some of the same conviction she showed as the boxer-mum in Shallow 出拳吧妈妈 (2021), but this time, in Jia, has a much stronger screen presence to strike sparks with.
The film’s obvious theme is needlessly spelled out on screen at the end as “Be happy while you’re alive” 趁活着 要快乐, aka carpe diem. Set and shot in the northeast province of Jilin, it looks good in an unforced way thanks to d.p. Feng Simu 冯思慕 (Lie Detector 测谎人, 2021).
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Ultra Comedy Culture Communication (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), China Film (CN), Beijing FunAge Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Ultra Comedy Culture Communication (CN).
Script: Wu Rina, Yuan Ying, Yan Zheng, Wang Min, Ma Duo, Hu Tutu, Xu Linlin, Wang Zixuan, Xu Yi’ou. Photography: Feng Simu. Editing: Huang Zeng Hongchen. Music: Lian Hua, Huang Yixin. Production design: Li Miao. Art direction: Guo Jinhui. Costumes: Gao Yi. Styling: Zhao Yuge. Sound: Yang Jiang, Zhao Nan. Action: Wang Cheng. Visual effects: Meng Meng. Executive direction: Liang Haidong.
Cast: Jia Bing (Jia Youwei), Tan Zhuo (Wang Xiaoqian), Xiaoshenyang (Sha Baihu), Yu Yang (Xu Dali), Dong Baoshi (Dong Jianfeng), Li Qi (Niu), Zhou Dayong (Han, doctor), Ma Xudong (clothes-shop salesman), Li Jiaqi [Lamuyangzi] (Liu Shasha), Zhang Baiqiao (young Jia Youwei), Li Zongheng (young Sha Baihu), Danke (himself), Zhuang Xiaolong (Li Meng), Da Yao (Yun, doctor), Feng Man (Liu Manman), Tian Ye (Tian, shopping-mall manager), Liu Kun (Kun, chief thug), Zhang Jintiao (boxing announcer), Wang Tianfang (private tutor).
Release: China, 1 May 2024.