Only You
命中注定
China/Hong Kong/US, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 112 mins.
Directed by Zhang Hao 张皓.
Rating: 5/10.
Tang Wei’s casual performance fatally undermines an otherwise pleasant remake of the 1994 US rom-com.
STORY
Beijing, the present day. Fang Yuan (Tang Wei), a veterinarian, was told twice by fortune-tellers when she was 15 that she would one day marry a man named Song Kunming. But he never appeared in her life, and she is now lovelessly engaged to dentist Xie Wei (Xie Dongshen). By chance she takes a phone message from an old schoolfriend of Xie Wei who says he can’t attend a class reunion as he’s about to board a plane to Milan. When he gives his name as Song Kunming, Fang Yuan impulsively flies off to Italy, along with one of her best friends, the married Li Xiaotong (Su Yan), to track him down. In Milan, Fang Yuan meets a local Chinese art trader (Liao Fan) who says his name is Song Kunming. Finding him attractive, and convinced he’s the man of her life, Fang Yuan goes back to his flat after a heavy drinking session; but when they start making out he confesses his name is actually Feng Dali. A Beijinger who’s lived in Italy for five years, Feng Dali claims he’s fallen in love with Fang Yuan; but she is still shocked by his deception. Together they discover the real Song Kunming has just checked out of his hotel. Eventually, Fang Yuan agrees to let Feng Dali help her find him. He says he’s traced Song Kunming to Florence, and along with Li Xiaotong they set off on an eventful journey by car.
REVIEW
Actress Tang Wei 汤唯 is the star and main problem of Only You 命中注定, a remake of the 1994 Hollywood rom-com directed by Norman Jewison and starring Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. As China’s love-affair with rom-coms shows no signs of abating, production major Huayi Brothers has teamed up with the US’ Columbia Pictures for this re-tread, which conveniently plays into the current Mainland trend of foreign-set romances. But the results are less happy than the previous official remake of a US rom-com, What Women Want 我知女人心 (Chen Daming 陈大明, 2010), with Liu Dehua 刘德华 [Andy Lau] and Gong Li 巩俐, whose great lead partnership and structural tweaks actually improved on the 2000 original starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt.
In its story of a young woman who pursues the unseen love of her life across Italy, Only You hews closely to the Hollywood original in overall structure, mostly changing the locations (Milan, Lucca, Florence instead of Venice, Rome, Positano) and the ending. But the crucial ingredient of any rom-com – the chemistry between its two leads – is fatally absent. Where Tomei and Downey kept the frothy original bubbling along, Tang and co-star Liao Fan never establish the same jokey-romantic complicity; and the more grounded direction by Zhang Hao 张皓 never lets the relationship really take flight.
In his first directorial outing, Zhang, who edited one of China’s finest recent rom-coms, I Do 我愿意 (Sun Zhou 孙周, 2012), provides an attractive frame for all the goings-on. As photographed by Taiwan-born, China-based d.p. Zhou Shuhao 周书豪 – whose versatile work has ranged from the naturalistic The Robbers 我的唐朝兄弟 (2009) through the stylised The Piano in a Factory 钢的琴 (2010) to in-between work like Dearest 亲爱的 (2014) – the northern Italian countryside and the cities of Milan, Lucca and Florence have a mellow, less fairytale look than those in the US original. The performances, too, are much less manic. That’s all fine, and the screenplay adapts the material from American to Chinese characters without any sense of strain, even including some witty jokes. (When Liao’s character, Song Kunming, admits his real name is Feng Dali, he adds, “Actually, Dali [the town in Yunnan] is not far from Kunming.”)
Liao, 41, who played the gruff detective in Black Coal, Thin Ice 白日焰火 (2014) and the impoverished boyfriend in Love on Credit 幸福额度 (2011), draws a likeable, slightly hippy character who’s both believable and a reasonable re-interpretation of Downey’s offbeat one. The tragic flaw in the whole enterprise is the casting of Tang who, as in so many of her performances, never inhabits her role and swings this way and that, with no fixed take on her character. As in other films where the central relationship was so crucial – Crossing Hennessy 月满轩尼诗 (2010) or Late Autumn 만추 (2010), for example – her apparently casual approach, as if she’s just dropped in on the set, undermines the whole suspension of disbelief. The plot of Only You may only be a fluffy rom-com, but Tang, who’s now in her mid-30s and should be honing her acting technique, leaves the audience with the impression that she doesn’t believe a word of it.
With Liao largely left in a vacuum, it’s left to the excellent Su Yan 苏岩, 41, to provide all the poise, comic timing and chemistry with her co-stars that’s so lacking in Tang’s performance. It’s Su’s first big-screen role since her majiang-playing taitai in Lust, Caution 色，戒 (2007) – coincidentally the film that launched Tang – and as the female best friend along for the ride (the Bonnie Hunt role in the original) she’s a constant delight.
Listed as one of the main producers, and getting a more prominent credit than the director in the main titles, veteran hitmeister Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 clearly had some input on the comic-realist tone, and the end credits even feature the well-known theme song from his pioneering rom-com Be There or Be Square 不见不散 (1998). But at best, Only You is simply a pleasant diversion rather than crackling like it should.
The Chinese title is a four-character phrase meaning destiny or one’s pre-determined fate. For the record, the scriptwriter of the US Only You, Diane Drake, also supplied the original story to What Women Want.
CREDITS
Presented by Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Columbia Pictures (US), Huayi Brothers International (HK). Produced by Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Huayi Brothers International (HK), Bon Voyage Film Studio (CN).
Script: Zhao Shuo. Original script: Diane Drake. Photography: Zhou Shuhao. Editing: Liu Miaomiao. Music: Ou Ge. Art direction: Di Kun. Sound: Wu Jing.
Cast: Tang Wei (Fang Yuan), Liao Fan (Song Kunming/Feng Dali), Su Yan (Li Xiaotong), Fang Fang (Su Juan), Liu Tao (Wang Xiaoshu), Xie Dongshen (Xie Wei, Fang Yuan’s fiance).
Release: China, 24 Jul 2015; Hong Kong, tba; US, 24 Jul 2015.