We Graduate
我们毕业啦
China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 94 mins.
Directors: Cheng Zhonghao 程中豪, Wang Kai 王凯.
Rating: 3/10.
By-the-numbers college romance could have worked as a comedy but ends up going round in circles.
STORY
Kunshan city, Jiangsu province, eastern China, the present day. Recent transfer student Ji Siyang (Gao Taiyu), brilliant at both studies and sports, has become the object of admiration by many of the senior high school’s female pupils, including Luo Xiaoran (Tong Fei) – much to the annoyance of fellow student Bai Tianhao (Xie Yingfei), her childhood pal and wannabe boyfriend. After meeting at a roller-skating rink, Luo Xiaoran and Ji Siyang seriously fall for each other. Two years later, after failing the college-entrance exam and then retaking it, Luo Xiaoran and her BFFs Lin Xiao’en (Ma Ding) and Li Aiai (Zhou Yiqiao) all end up as roomates at the same Shanghai art college. Luo Xiaoran is shocked to see Ji Siyang at the same college, with a girl, Chen Jing (Lu Xiaping), at his side. (Two years ago, Ji Siyang had suddenly left high school with no explanation, leaving Luo Xiaoran devastated.) Bai Tianhao, also at the same college, insists Luo Xiaoran is now his girlfriend, though she continues to stress she’s not romantically interested in him. But when she tries to talk to Ji Siyang, he says he’s not interested in her. Chen Jing turns out to be just a friend of Ji Siyang and Luo Xiaoran still continues to obsess about him. She then hears that he is taking outside jobs as he has money problems. And then Lin Xiao’en, who’s always carried a torch for Ji Siyang since high school, confesses to him that she loves him.
REVIEW
From the generic high-school title to the plot that just goes round in circles the whole time – they love, they don’t, they love, they don’t – We Graduate 我们毕业啦 has a very lightweight feel after the first movies (for all their flaws) by the duo of producer-director Cheng Zhonghao 程中豪 and director Wang Kai 王凯. Where their college rom-com Broadcasting Girl 我的播音系女友 (2014) marked a modest but mostly diverting debut, and Love Studio 同城邂逅 (2016) – an unacknowledged remake of hit South Korean rom-com Cyrano Agency 시라노; 연애조작단 (2010) – was a more ambitious step up, Graduate seems utterly by the numbers. Even for the time, its throwaway RMB3 million box office reflected the fact.
The script, by big-screen newcomers Danshu Guangguang 丹书光光 (pen name of Song Guangzhen 宋光振) and Wang Yucen 汪俞岑, sets up a typical circular motif: girl falls for boy but he seems to be uninterested, her childhood pal loves her but she’s not interested, and her BFF falls for the boy but he’s not interested. Written and played as a rom-com, with the stress on com rather than rom, it could have worked as a comedy of misunderstanding. But the dialogue is routine and the central character is unsympathetic, a spoiled self-obsessive (as her friends eventually tell her) rather than a humourously confused late teen. The actresses and actors – led by exotic beauty Tong Fei 童菲 (a Wang Jing 王晶 [Wong Jing] discovery), then 26, and pin-uppy actor-singer Gao Taiyu 高泰宇, 25 – just look pretty and mouth their lines. Standing out by a smidgeon is Ma Ding 马丁, at 29 the oldest of the leads, as the BFF with an agenda of her own; a graduate of Shanghai Theatre Academy, the actress had a supporting role in Love Studio and was to go on to become a regular in Cheng and Wang’s films, finally co-writing/directing their best film to date, Fireworks 毕业的我们 (2019).
Technical credits are okay without being special. An alternative English title is Our Graduation, though the one on the actual film is We Graduate.
CREDITS
Presented by Xunli Pictures (Shanghai) (CN), Huawen (Shanghai) Film (CN), Shanghai Haoying Media (CN), Shanghai Asia Television Art Centre (CN), Beijing Ziweiguang Cultural Media (CN).
Script: Danshu Guangguang [Song Guangzhen], Wang Yucen. Photography: Chen Jian. Editing: Li Lu. Song: Chen Zhipeng. Art direction: Huang Xu. Styling: Ma Lihua. Sound: Sun Jiyang, Yang Ming. Executive direction: Song Feng.
Cast: Tong Fei (Luo Xiaoran), Gao Taiyu (Ji Siyang), Xie Yingfei (Bai Tianhao), Ma Ding (Lin Xiao’en), Zhou Yiqiao (Li Aiai), Qiao Xi (Ouyang Xue), Qiao Yang (Huo Jie), Zhang Tianqi (Guo Haoran), Chen Jian (art teacher), Zhang Jiajun (commercials director), Li Congjun (director’s assistant), Lu Xiaping (Chen Jing), Xie Ping (college doctor), Zhang Nianfu (Li Xiaoran’s father), Cao Yi (Li Xiaoran’s mother), Gu Chao (Bai Tianhao’s father), Yan Hai (Bai Tianhao’s mother).
Release: China, 10 Jun 2016.