To Be with You

我的青春有个你

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 96 mins.

Directors: Lin Ziping 林子平, Sun Rui 孙睿.

Rating: 6/10.

Formulary university rom-com is remarkably grown-up for the genre, with a fresher feel to the material.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. Workaholic executive Zhou Zhou (Wang Zhen’er), who runs an architectural design firm, is returning home late one night when she sees a giant hoarding for an exhibition by photographer Qiu Fei that uses a picture of her when she was in her late teens. Her mind goes back to 1998. (As an architecture student, the serious Zhou Zhou [Wang Keru] had first met the free-wheeling Qiu Fei [Liu Dongqin] during military training at university, when he’d rescued a necklace that fell off her. She was just 18, and he was also a freshman, who’s real interest was photography. Later, while she was watching him play football, he’d accidentally knocked her out with the ball. To apologise, he’d taped a lecture she had to miss as she was in the university’s sick bay. Qiu Fei had invited Zhou Zhou to the freshmen’s welcome party but she’d turned him down, pleading pressure of studies. At the party, rock singer Zhang Guangrui [Zhang Liao] had dumped Zhou Zhou’s roommate and best pal, Hao Aijia [Huang Miyi], and Qiu Fei’s roommate, Ma Jie [Bao Yaming], had made an unsuccessful pass at hotsy lecturer Fan [Yao Chen]. Qiu Fei had continued to court Zhou Zhou but she was always very calm and collected, not encouraging him. Hao Aijia had started coming on to Qiu Fei’s roommate Yang Yang [Li Huan]; he was initially delighted but then realised she was only trying to get back at Zhang Guangrui dumping her. After getting caught up in a fight with Zhang Guangrui at a rock club, Zhou Zhou and Qiu Fei spend a night in a hotel, but in adjoining rooms. Some time later, in the darkroom where he processes his photos, they finally kiss.) Zhou Zhou goes to see the exhibition by Qiu Fei (Hu Yuwei), but doesn’t meet him. (One day, at university, a girl called Han Lu [Gao Yufei] had suddenly turned up in Qiu Fei’s room, asking for his help in a personal matter. Zhou Zhou had seen them together.)

REVIEW

The fresh approach to generic material shown by Taiwan-born director Lin Ziping 林子平 in his leukaemia drama Let Life Be Beautiful 再见吧！少年 (2020) is visible even more strongly in To Be with You 我的青春有个你, a totally formulary university rom-com that is remarkably grown-up for the genre. Co-directed with Sun Rui 孙睿, author of the original novel and co-writer of the script, it only managed a blah RMB62 million on release in mid-November but was a considerable improvement on Life’s miniscule RMB3.5 million a year earlier. The production history of To Be is not clear, though it appears to have been shot before Life but certified for release only some four years later, in mid-2021.

The original novel 草样年华, known variously as Waiting in the Rye and Thrive As Grass in English, was a major success when it was published in 2004 (see cover, left), selling some 300,000 copies and catapulting Beijing-born Sun, then in his early 20s, from an unknown to a cult youth writer. He followed it with two sequels. In 2014, a script written by Sun received official approval and was to be shot in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, but no more was heard. In mid-2016 a 40-part TVD supervised by Sun and directed by Ji Zhi 姬智 was reported to have started shooting with a year-long schedule in Beijing and Xiamen; that, too, was never heard of again. Meanwhile, an unrelated online novel with the title 我的青春有个你 (literally, “My Youth Had You in It”, the film’s final release title) appeared on the website 起点女生网 (“Starting Point Women’s Web”) promoting female fiction. And then in Jul 2017 it was reported that Lin and Sun were co-directing a film version of the novel, with young Mainland actress Wang Keru 王可如 and actor Liu Dongqin 刘冬沁, to be released the following summer (see poster, left). No more was heard, and in the meantime Let Life Be Beautiful, funded by Mainland streamer iQiyi, was briefly released in cinemas in early Oct 2020 – the first theatrical feature by Tainan-born Lin, who’d studied film at the US’ Syracuse University during 1997-2000, had been directing TVDs since around 2007, was executive director on hit Taiwan high-school comedy Our Times 我的少女时代 (2015), and in recent years had also worked in the Mainland.

The basic plot (nice girl meets cheeky bad boy at university) is nothing new, and the screenplay, by Sun, Wang Qingqing 王晴晴 and Gao Han 高寒, takes the familiar step of telling the story as a flashback from the present, as a high-flying workaholic architect has her memory jogged by a hoarding for a photo exhibition in Beijing. There’s a certain amount of cross-cutting between past and present in the second half, but it’s brief; most of the film is set in the late 1990s – the new nostalgia for Mainland millennials searching for “simpler” times.

Name comedian Shen Teng 沈腾 and actress Yao Chen 姚晨 get top billing, though they’re each only in for a couple of scenes – Shen as a bespectacled teaching head outraged by the students’ shenanigans, and Yao in a subtly observed cameo as a lecturer whom one of the students falls for. The heavy lifting is done by former ballet student Wang (then 21, and in only her second film proper, after period dance drama Youth 芳华, 2017) and young TV actor Liu (then 23, and in his first film role). Lynx-eyed beauty Wang is fine but it’s actually Liu who makes more impression in a better-defined role as the cheeky chappy she falls for. Of the pair, Wang’s character actually comes across as the more unreasonable, taking offence for the smallest slight and throwing the viewer’s sympathy more in the direction of Liu’s character. In the event, the final 15 minutes are surprisingly moving, despite being nothing original or unexpected. Supporting roles are richly and likeably drawn, especially by newcomers Huang Miyi 黄米依 as the heroine’s spunky BFF and Bao Yaming 包亚铭 as the student who gets a crush on Yao’s hotsy lecturer, plus An Ge 安戈 as the boys’ veteran roommate.

Direction is smooth and unmannered, giving the cast plenty of space and only occasionally stepping beyond realism as in the sequence where the two take adjoining rooms in a hotel. Technical credits are strong, with good-looking widescreen photography by Taiwan d.p. Jiang Minzhong 江敏忠 (Love on Credit 幸福额度, 2011; Say Yes! 101次求婚, 2013; Dude’s Manual 脱单告急, 2018), a conventional but pleasantly understated score by Chinese American Li He 李赫 (Warm Hug 温暖的抱抱, 2020), smooth cutting by Hong Kong veteran Li Dongquan 李栋全 [Wenders Li], and plenty of soundtrack songs. Despite being set (at an unnamed university) in Beijing, the film was largely shot in nearby Tianjin.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Aim Media Pictures (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN). Produced by Shanghai Aim Media Pictures (CN).

Script: Sun Rui, Wang Qingqing, Gao Han. Novel: Sun Rui. Photography: Jiang Minzhong. Editing: Li Dongquan [Wenders Li]. Music: Li He. Music supervision: Gao Hang. Art direction: Bai Lingtong. Styling: Zhang Dingmu. Sound: Hao Gang. Action: Zhu Yongmin.

Cast: Shen Teng (head of teaching), Yao Chen (Fan, lecturer), Wang Keru (Zhou Zhou), Liu Dongqin (Qiu Fei), Li Huan (Yang Yang), Huang Miyi (Hao Aijia), Xie Zhixun (Chen Huaiyu, student association head), Bao Yaming (Ma Jie), An Ge (Xie, dormitory room head), Gao Yufei (Han Lu), Wang Zhen’er (older Zhou Zhou), Hu Yuwei (older Qiu Fei), Cong Shan (Zhou Zhou’s mother), Fu Changchun (Qianliyan), Fu Guanming (military training instructor), Shen Mengmeng (Shen Li), Chen Yeling (Tong Xiaoya), Ren Long (architecture lecturer), Zhang Liao (Zhang Guangrui), Ren Siyang (Han Lu’s fiance).

Release: China, 19 Sep 2021.