New Perfect Two

新天生一对

Taiwan/China/Hong Kong, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 96 mins.

Director: Zhu Yanping 朱延平.

Rating: 6/10.

Vehicle for Taiwan singer Zhou Yumin [Vic Chou] is thin but okay, and very well packaged.

STORY

Southern China, the present day. Chen Hanbin (Zhou Yumin), a onetime champion motorbike racer who retired after a bad accident, has become a drunk and a gambler since his wife, air stewardess Fang Jiawei (Yang Mi), also left him six years ago. He lives in a house overlooking the sea, works on-and-off at the bar of Lei (Tao Zeru), who raised him from the age of seven, and is partly looked after by beach cafe owner Ma Niu (Chen Jiahua), who has a baby sister (Ding Shasha). One day Fang Jiawei reappears and asks him to look after a young boy, Binbin (Xiaoxiaobin), whom she says is his son, as she is going abroad for a while. She discovered she was pregnant after leaving Chen Hanbin, and has not told the kid that Chen Hanbin is his father. Chen Hanbin and Binbin’s happy days together are spoilt by the appearance of a moneylender (Cong Cong), who eventually beats up Chen Hanbin and Lei. As pressure mounts for Chen Hanbin to return to racing again, he leaves home with Binbin and then hears some news that takes him to Shanghai to meet Fang Jiawei.

REVIEW

New Perfect Two 新天生一对 is a family-cum-kids’ comedy-drama that won’t win any awards from critics, but knows exactly what it’s doing and does it pretty well. Technically it’s a remake by prolific Taiwan director Zhu Yanping 朱延平 of his own 1984 comedy Perfect Two 天生一对, starring popular pudding-faced comic Xu Buliao 许不了 (in one of his last roles) and child star Xiaobinbin 小彬彬. In fact, it’s been completely re-tooled as a vehicle for F4 boybander-actor Zhou Yumin 周渝民 [Vic Chou] – star of the melodrama Linger 蝴蝶飞 (2008) by Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] – seven-year-old child star Xiaoxiaobin 小小彬 (aka Wen Xuanye 温玄烨), son of the original’s child star, and S.H.E girlbander Chen Jiahua 陈嘉桦, aka Ella, 30. A totally unoriginal movie about a motorbike racer-turned-layabout who gets to bond with a young son he never knew he had, it’s targeted squarely at Zhou’s young female fans, with the singer-actor in his first “fatherly” role. Everyone else has to be content with Chen (in her first screen role) doing her grumpy tomboyish act, while adult males can admire Mainland actress Yang Mi 杨幂 in a further move away from her sex-bomb origins into serious, fully-clothed roles.

Partly funded by Mainland money (which explains the presence of Yang, and veteran actor Tao Zeru 陶泽如), and nominally set somewhere in southern China (with a couple of scenes in Shanghai), the movie was largely shot around scenic Kending, in southern Taiwan, and has a totally Taiwan feel – not just in Zhou and Chen’s accents but also in its humour and emotional cuteness. Though playing a totally unsympathetic construct, Zhou is basically quite likeable here, and bonds well with kiddie star Xiaoxiaobin in the many sequences of them playing around together. Chen is also good as the hard-arsed female friend who really loves the slob. Only when the script, credited to seven writers, has to construct a dramatic finale does its thinness really show, though Yang manages not to break into laughter at some of her lines.

Technically, it’s director Zhu’s classiest production in a while, with swooping, handsome photography by Hong Kong d.p. Pan Yaoming 潘耀明 [Anthony Pun], a smooth score, a couple of pleasant songs on the soundtrack, and editing that keeps the film moving along. A completely unnecessary comic cameo by Taiwan actress Xu Ruoxuan 徐若瑄 [Vivian Hsu] and comedian Zhuge Liang 猪哥亮 could easily be removed.

CREDITS

Presented by Stellar Mega Films (CN), Polyface Movie (TW), Anhui Television (CN), Enlight Pictures (CN), Vision Films (TW), TC-1 Culture Fund (TW). Produced by Polyface Movie (TW), Vision Films (TW).

Script: Jian Shigeng, Liu Shuhua, Gu Shuguan, Lin Zhixiang, Chen Xinyi, Zhou Jin, Li Zhuoxiong. Photography: Pan Yaoming [Anthony Pun]. Editing: Chen Bowen, Weng Yuhong. Music: Zhao Zengxi [Chiu Tsang-hei], Zhang Renjie. Production design: Liu Minxiong [Ben Lau]. Art direction: Zhou Shihong, Liang Shiyun. Styling: Du Peixun. Sound: Du Duzhi. Action: Lin Wanzhang. Special effects: Zhong Zhixing (Part 3). Animation: Kent. Aerial photography: Quincy Chong.

Cast: Zhou Yumin [Vic Chou] (Chen Hanbin/B), Chen Jiahua (Ma Niu), Xiaoxiaobin [Wen Xuanye] (Binbin/Benny), Yang Mi (Fang Jiawei, Chen Hanbin’s wife), Ding Shasha (Shasha, Ma Niu’s younger sister), Xu Ruoxuan [Vivian Hsu] (Li, toothy girl in bar), Zhuge Liang (Li’s father), Chen Chusheng (Zun Ni, Chen Hanbin’s motorbike opponent), Tao Zeru (Lei, bar owner), Zhao Jie (policeman), Riva [Zhang Fangyi] (young girl in night street), Cong Cong [Tang Congsheng] (moneylender), Tang Wenliang, Liu Hanxing (moneylender’s bodyguards).

Release: Taiwan, 20 Jan 2012; China, 23 Jan 2012; Hong Kong, 2 Feb 2012.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 29 May 2012.)