Eternal Moment
将爱情进行到底
China, 2011, colour, 2:35:1, 103 mins.
Director: Zhang Yibai 张一白.
Rating: 6/10.
Super-slick Valentine’s Day movie misses the natural charm of the TV series that inspired it.
STORY
China, the present day. I: Yang Zheng (Li Yapeng) recalls how he graduated in 1999, contacted his onetime college girlfriend Wenhui (Xu Jinglei) in the US in 2001 and married her when she returned to China in 2003. Since he has become a successful CEO, she has become a fulltime housewife. But one evening, when he comes home intending to watch his favourite sports programme on TV as usual, suddenly he doesn’t recognise the woman he married. And when he moves out to a hotel, she doesn’t come looking for him. II: Wenhui, divorced and with two young twin sons, is working as a shopgirl in Shanghai, while Yang Zheng, about to be divorced, is a car mechanic in Beijing. Neither has seen the other for over a decade, but they both attend a 10th anniversary college reunion in Shanghai organised by their friend Jiawei (Cui Dazhi). They end up spending a whole night together, recalling past times and re-igniting old fires. III: Yang Zheng traces a drunken happy-birthday call from Wenhui to Bordeaux, and flies from Beijing to see her for the first time in over a decade. At Bordeaux train station, Wenhui is waiting to welcome Chuchu (He Jie), the mistress of her boss Pan Xiao (Du Wenze), head of specialist wine retailer YH Global. Wenhui introduces Yang Zheng as her boyfriend. She later tells Yang Zheng that Pan Xiao is actually her husband, not her boss. With Pan Xiao temporarily away, Wenhui, Yang Zheng and Chuchu spend time together.
REVIEW
Eternal Moment 将爱情进行到底 is not so much a sequel by director Zhang Yibai 张一白 to his 1998 TV drama series Cherish Our Love Forever, more a collection of three “what if?”s. The original 20-parter, written by Huo Xin 霍昕 (Shower 洗澡, 1999; Kung Fu Hustle 功夫, 2004; Zhang’s Curiosity Kills the Cat 好奇害死猫, 2006), was enormously influential at the time, not only for the careers of its then-young cast – four of whom (leads Xu Jinglei 徐静蕾 and Li Yapeng 李亚鹏, plus Wang Xuebing 王学兵 and Cui Dazhi 崔达治 as their college friends) are reunited here – but also as a ground-breaking look at contemporary college youth and related social problems. The central love story between Yang Zheng and the emotionally wounded Wenhui was, however, left unresolved, so Eternal Moment (which has the same Chinese title as the original TV series) returns in real time, a decade or so later, to propose three solutions.
Though it won’t mean so much to anyone who wasn’t a fan of the original series, it’s still a smart spin on sequel-itis, and allows the film to roam across a variety of styles. The first segment proposes a scenario in which Yang has become a self-centred CEO and completely missed the fact that Wenhui has also developed a life and personality of her own; the second finds them as two working-class divorcees who rediscover their shared past one night in Shanghai; and the third (the most fabricated of all) is a glorified excuse for some scenic shooting in Europe (specifically, summertime Bordeaux in southern France), making the movie an exotic Valentine’s Day release in China. The opening segment – almost entirely played as a product of Yang’s imagination, with very slick visual effects and production design – is especially imaginative, and is nicely contrasted by the down-to-earth second segment, which recalls Zhang’s The Longest Night in Shanghai 夜。上海 (2007) as Yang and Wenhui wander the city’s night streets.
Eternal Moment never looks less than fabulous in the widescreen images by d.p. Huang Lian 黄炼, and is assembled with all of Zhang’s usual slickness; but it never comes close to touching any real nerves. The chemistry between leads Xu and Li is still intact after 12 years but is encased in such obviously “constructed” scenarios and such highly manicured production values that no real emotion comes off the screen. Wang livens up the first tale as an old friend, and He Jie 何洁 the last as a tough little mistress, but otherwise the film is mostly Xu and Li looking at each other and exchanging largely unmemorable dialogue in fabulously photographed settings.
That’s all fine, and makes for an effortless ride. And Xu, whose movie it basically is, exudes a mature sexiness that’s new in her career. But given the promise extended by the film’s second episode of some genuine feeling and insight, it’s not enough. Vox-pop interviews with real-life couples, inserted between the stories, inject a note of naturalness that merely highlights the main movie’s fabrication.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Galloping Horse Film & TV Production (CN), Beijing Century Spring Media (CN), Le Grand Films (CN).
Script: Xing Aina, Shen Wei, Mou Xiaoya, Huang Zijia. Original story: Shen Wei, Xing Aina, Mou Xiaoya. Photography: Huang Lian. Editing: Kong Jinlei, Yu Dong. Music: Xiaoke, Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], An Wei. Songs: Xiaoke. Art direction: Di Kun. Costume design: Zhang Qixin. Sound: Li Yang, An Wei. Visual effects: Feng Liwei.
Cast: Xu Jinglei (Wenhui), Li Yapeng (Yang Zheng), Wang Xuebing (Le Yan), Du Wenze [Chapman To] (Pan Xiao, Wenhui’s husband in Bordeaux), He Jie (Chuchu), Cheng Yi (Yuanyuan), Cui Dazhi (Jiawei), Yue Xiaojun (Wenhui’s ex-husband in Shanghai), Feng Li (chubby boss), Ning Hao (Beijing policeman), Xu Dongdong (Beijing policewoman), Daxiang (Daxiang, Wenhui’s son in Bordeaux), Liu Yinwen, Huang Yuchun (Shanghai policewomen), Li Muyao, Li Mujia (Wenhui’s twin sons in Shanghai), Liu Muyang (son), Feng Peng, Zhao Da (airport policemen), Zhao Wei (voice of Yang Zheng’s wife in Beijing), Chen Ming, Wang Yun, Cao Weiyu.
Release: China, 12 Feb 2011.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 2 May 2011.)