One Night or Whole Life
识色，幸也
China, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 99 mins.
Director: Liu Xinhan 刘欣翰.
Rating: 4/10.
Glossy rom-com about different attitudes to sex and relationships is sunk by a corny, cliched script.
STORY
Beijing, 2009. Five years after moving to the capital from Nanping, Fujian province, southern China, Xu Nuo (Fan Yichen) decides to go back home, having failed to realise his dream of becomning a game designer. Just before leaving he by chance helps out a fashon editor, Kuang Yuanxi (Huang Yi), from being humiliated in a company drinking session in a KTV, and the two end up drunk and in bed together. Next day she visits his flat just as he’s leaving and they end up in bed for real. He subsequently moves in with her. (He hasn’t had a girlfriend since he was dumped back home by his dream girl, Xu Xiaoxiao [Tang Xi], when she preferred going abroad to study.) Xu Nuo’s best friend from college days is Hu Xiaogao (Han Chengyu), the spoiled playboy son of wealthy businessman Hu Tiejun (Liu Zhibing). His current target is Kuang Jiajia (Shen Mengchen), the fiery, independent niece of Kuang Yuanxi. When Kuang Yuanxi leaves her job, Xu Nuo proposes to her and they later marry. Meanwhile, Hu Xiaogao has a major argument with his father when the latter tells him to give up his playboy lifestyle and join the company. He also discovers he has a rival for Kuang Jiajia’s affections in the form of airforce pilot Peng Fei (Song Yu). Only when he follows the two to an airforce memorial ceremony does he understand the situation; afterwards Kuang Jiajia agrees to date him but won’t sleep with him until they’re officially engaged, as she suffers from “love mysophobia”. Meanwhile, Kuang Yuanxi gets a new job as marketing manager at a fashion magazine and Xu Nuo starts up his own gaming company, helped during a difficult period by investment from Hu Xiaogao’s father. But then Xu Xiaoxiao suddenly re-enters his life at a business meeting with a powerful Hong Kong telecoms company.
REVIEW
Constancy vs fickleness is the main theme behind One Night or Whole Life 识色，幸也, a wannabe rom-com about two bosom buddies with opposite approaches to the opposite sex. Starting as a bouncy, if obvious, foursome comedy but later getting bogged down by TVD-style plotting and manufactured melodrama, this second feature by middle-generation writer-director Liu Xinhan 刘欣翰 (aka Liu Xiaoxiao 刘潇潇) crashed at the box office, the last of three films that Taiwan actor-singer Fan Yichen 范逸臣, then 39, and Mainland actress Huang Yi 黄奕, 40, starred in during 2015-17. (The first, costume drama Chinese Wine 国酒, was released in 2016; the second, horror Mortal Ouija 碟仙, only in 2019.) Liu’s screenplay simply pushes buttons as it shuffles characters into various situations and becomes increasingly corny as it goes along. The whole thing isn’t helped by (a) Huang miscast as one of the older pair and (b) the younger couple being relatively more interesting. Slick production values – and especially terrific widescreen photography by d.p. Yang Jun 杨军 – help compensate for the script’s inadequacies but by the end the ship goes down with all hands, accompanied by an over-soupy music score.
After a rather confused opening, Liu’s script tries to settle down into a generic rom-com but never really gets to grips with its main theme. One reason is that the film has very little in the way of dramatic construction; the other is that the script fails to provide convincing reasons for the characters’ actions. Why a fuerdai playboy and a poor gaming geek should become blood brothers, and why an elegant fashion editor should suddenly fall for the latter, are just two examples – but especially important as much of the film depends on these relationships being believable. The situations and people they encounter are also completely generic – which doesn’t matter in the lively early going but becomes increasingly noticeable as the tone becomes heavier.
As the elder couple, Huang and Fan have a relaxed chemistry, but she looks out of place and is too serious, while he actually gets better as his character evolves. As the younger couple, however, it’s presenter-actress Shen Mengchen 沈梦辰 (equally sparky in the comedy Fall in Love with You 这个大叔不太囧, 2014) and TV’s Han Chengyu 韩承羽, both in their late 20s, who steal much of the film, especially in the first half with the former as a fiery, independent character and the latter having a roaring time as a spoiled, serial lothario. As a vengeful man-eater, TV’s Tang Xi 唐熙 livens up the second half, all glam guns blazing.
Though set in Beijing, the film was largely shot down south in in Chengdu, Sichuan province. The film’s English title explicitly refers to its main theme; the Chinese one, which roughly means “all types of love are fortunate”, sounds exactly like a popular saying that “life is just about food and sex” 食色，性也.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Sparkle Sun Film Group (CN).
Script: Liu Xinhan. Script planning: Qu Shifei, Wu Zheng, Chen Lei, Wu Jian. Photography: Yang Jun. Editing: Li Dianshi. Music direction: Hu Xiao’ou. Art direction: Wang Zhaohui. Costume design: Shi Zhanying. Styling: Wang Zhan. Sound: Liu Tao. Visual effects: Pu Xinyue (Vision Unit). Executive direction: Sui Zongquan.
Cast: Fan Yichen (Xu Nuo), Huang Yi (Kuang Yuanxi), Shen Mengchen (Kuang Jiajia), Han Chengyu (Hu Xiaogao), Liu Zhibing (Hu Tiejun), Tang Xi (Xu Xiaoxiao), Song Yu (Peng Fei), Sun Xiaoxiao (editor), Shi Leqi (Xu Nuo’s secretary), Chen Lei (Ma, gaming company director), Chen Wei(Hu Xiaogao’s friend), Li Zhitang (broker), Pei Junhua (Glasses), Li Muze (Big Man), Dai Ming (Kuang Yuanxi’s father), Wang Yuanda (Dou Niu), Liu Xinhan (Ma Fulin), Pan Anzi (Wang, company director), by2-Bai Weiling (Hu Xiaogao’s girlfriend), Su Li (Xu Nuo’s landlady), Liu Xiaocui (state investigator).
Release: China, 3 Nov 2017.