Chasing Dream
我的拳王男友
Hong Kong/China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 116 mins.
Director: Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To].
Rating: 8/10.
The Milkyway Image team powers back with this offbeat comedy-drama, set in the Mainland, between an MMA fighter and a wannabe singer.
STORY
A city in eastern China, the present day. Indebted wannabe singer Du Xiaojuan (Wang Keru), while working as a ring girl at an MMA fight, is recognised by Gao Qiang (Bin Zi), the loan shark-cum-manager of one of the combatants, Lu Hu (Xiang Zuo), who also doubles as a debt collector for his boss. She runs for it but ends up hiding in the car of Lu Hu, who hands her over. After Du Xiaojuan is humiliated by Gao Qiang, Lu Hu takes her back to his warehouse apartment to keep an eye on her, following her around as she does various jobs from cleaning cars to pole dancing. Though a bit simple, he’s as ambitious as she is, despite injuries to his eye and liver, and a mutually useful friendship develops between them. One day she manages to grab her ID card and ukelele to attend an audition for a national female talent show, Perfect Diva 全能女声, but doesn’t make the grade. Rushing from one audition to another, she fails as a singer, dancer and stripper; finally, at an audition in Ninghai, and with Lu Hu’s help, she gets accepted as a singer of one her own songs. Lu Hu coaches her in presentation and helps to keep her spirits up; she’s also driven by wanting to get back at her ex-lover, well-known TV personality Qu Fengfeng (Ma Xiaohui), for stealing her songs. Despite him being one of the judges, she makes it through to the next round, with the support of chief judge Zhao Ying (Wu Yitong). At his next big fight, Lu Hu just manages to win, with Du Xiaojuan’s ringside encouragement. She gets through the next round of Perfect Diva, pitted against rock singer Hai Zhu (Yu Wenwen), who won’t give up despite escalating physical injuries. Suddenly, Lu Hu is summoned to the countryside boxing school of his old master Ma Qing (Shao Bing), who is struggling to make ends meet with his young pupils but is still angry at Lu Hu for what he sees as a betrayal of all he was taught as a kid. After Lu Hu settles scores with his master, he and Du Xiaojuan finally kiss, but his subsequent clumsy behaviour almost ends their relationship. In the next round of Perfect Diva, Du Xiaojuan loses out to Hai Zhu thanks to Qu Fengfeng’s machinations and she retires to the country to live with her grandmother (Cao Yang). Meanwhile, Lu Hu succeeds in his dream of owning a hotpot restaurant and supports his master’s return to the ring – a fight in which the latter is humiliatingly beaten. Against expectations, both Du Xiaojuan and Lu Hu find themselves returning to their separate worlds.
REVIEW
Teamed with his longtime artistic partner, writer Wei Jiahui 韦家辉 [Wai Ka-fai], Hong Kong veteran Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To], 64, makes a strong return to the directing chair after a three-year lay-off with Chasing Dream 我的拳王男友, a relationship comedy-drama that manages to be both a deconstruction of and a tribute to the Chinese Dream. An offbeat love story between an MMA fighter and a wannabe singer, bound by ambition rather than sex, it’s a long way from Du’s frequent crime/action dramas – of which his last movie, the hospital-set Three 三人行 (2016), was one of his best – but, with its cockeyed, often humorous take on generic material, is instantly recognisable as a Milkyway Image production. What looks on the surface to be just a vanity showcase for Hong Kong actor Xiang Zuo 向佐 [Jacky Heung] – son of China Star Movie owner Xiang Huaqiang 向华强 [Charles Heung] with whom Du has a long history – turns out to be a polished, highly entertaining slice of entertainment that has more going on beneath the surface than expected, as well as giving a star-making opportunity to Mainland dancer-actress Wang Keru 王可如, who roundly steals the show and merits the film an extra point alone.
Xiang’s biggest role so far has been the muscular but charmless lead character in costume VFX-athon League of Gods 封神传奇 (2016) – also produced by Xiang Sr. – in which he showed no special chemistry with his romantic partner, played by Mainland actress-model Yang Ying 杨颖 [Angelababy]. In Dream he gets top-billing and most of the poster art, and cuts a much more simpatico figure; but despite the film being marketed as a boxing drama, it’s more a light relationship comedy in which Wang’s cute but determined singer is more the focus. From the very opening as she rushes to fulfil a ring-girl assignment, her character drives the film: most of the first half is devoted to her attempts to crack a talent competition, with Xiang’s boxer helping from the wings, and only halfway through, via intercut training montages, does the screenplay – by Wai and fellow Hong Kongers Chen Weibin 陈伟斌 (Du’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 单身男女, 2011), Mai Tianshu 麦天枢 (Three) and Chen Zhaoxi 陈兆禧 (web series Shadow of Justice 蚀日风暴, 2018) – really return to his story, in a rather manufactured subplot about his boyhood master.
On a performance level, Xiang, 35, has an energetic, boyish charm as the ever-optimistic, slightly simple MMA slugger who dreams of opening his own hotpot restaurant, and has good complementary chemistry with Wang. But in every other respect, including the film’s minimal emotional depth, Beijing-born Wang, 25, is the star, combining dance, comedy, pathos and sexiness in a head-turning performance. Trained as a ballet dancer, she debuted in web horror movie Following the Dead 活死人追踪 (2016) but made her first mark as a member of the dance troupe in prestige period drama Youth 芳华 (2017), followed by the online TVD Deep in My Heart 我心深触 (2019) and the still unreleased youth movie Waiting in the Rye 草样年华 [finally released in autumn 2021 as To Be with You] and period drama The Coldest City 红尘1945. Dream, therefore, is effectively her feature-film debut in a leading role – and it’s a winner. The original script did not include so many musical numbers but, on discovering her dance talent, Wai expanded that aspect, including a full-scale fantasy number near the end that’s a real joy. With catchy songs (and some surprisingly delicate underscoring) by Hong Kong veteran Jin Peida 金培达 [Peter Kam], Dream is almost a de facto musical.
Until the end, which finally endorses the Chinese Dream, Du and Wai spend most of the time satirising blind ambition and celebrity culture, from the whole process of talent competitions to the media types that make a living from them and the wannabes that are desperate to win them. One inspired comic creation is a Su Rui 苏芮-like rock contestant – beautifully played by Chinese Canadian singer-actress Yu Wenwen 于文文 [Kelly Yu] (The Ex-File: The Return of the Exes 前任3 再见前任, 2017; Twenty 二十岁, 2018) – who’s so ambitious she keeps turning up despite escalating injuries. Among the other contestants, Lv Wanchun 吕婉春 is poignant as a Shen Dianxia 沈殿霞 [Lydia Shum] lookalike; and of the celebrity judges who are the real stars, Mainland actress Wu Yitong 吴一彤 and actor Ma Xiaohui 马晓辉 have great fun pastiching gung-ho TV types.
MMA sequences are grittily staged, shot and cut, with Du himself taking a credit for action direction, while the musical sequences – in line with the film’s general energy – have a showbizzy pizzazz. Milkyway regulars editor David Richardson, d.p. Zheng Zhaoqiang 郑兆强 [Cheng Siu-keung] and production designer Yu Jia’an 余家安 [Bruce Yu] are all on top form.
Du’s films have never been big box-office in the Mainland, occasionally reaching around RMB200 million (Blind Detective 盲探, 2013; Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 单身男女2, 2014) but more often in the two-figure range. Dream, alas, was no exception, crashing with a puny RMB24.5 million, only a quarter of Three and a half of his ambitious musical Office 华丽上班族 (2015). The film was shot in and around Hufu township, Yixing municipality, southern Jiangsu province, though the location is never directly specified. The Chinese title means “My Boyfriend the Boxing Champion”; a better English title would be Chasing Dreams, rather than the present Chinglish one.
CREDITS
Presented by Hero Star Movie Cultural (Beijing) (CN), China Star Movie (HK). Produced by Milkyway Image (Hong Kong) (HK).
Script: Wei Jiahui [Wai Ka-fai], Chen Weibin, Mai Tianshu, Chen Zhaoxi. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing: David Richardson, Liang Zhanlun. Music: Jin Peida [Peter Kam]. Song music: Jin Peida [Peter Kam]. Song lyrics: Xu Hongyi. Production design: Yu Jia’an [Bruce Yu]. Art direction: Liang Shiyun. Costume design: Huang Jiabao [Stephanie Wong]. Sound: Li Bingzhi, Du Duzhi, Wu Shuyao. Action: Du Qifeng [Johnnie To] (direction), Huang Weiliang [Jack Wong] (choreography). Visual effects: Luo Weihao, Zhang Zhanrong (Different Digital Design). Choreography: Yang Tian. Boxing advice: Lan Jing.
Cast: Xiang Zuo [Jacky Heung] (Lu Hu/Tiger), Wang Keru (Du Xiaojuan/Cuckoo), Shao Bing (Ma Qing, master), Bin Zi (Gao Qiang, trainer), Wu Yitong (Zhao Ying, head judge), Yu Wenwen [Kelly Yu] (Hai Zhu), Ma Xiaohui (Qu Fengfeng), Zhang Jincheng (Lu Di), Wei Binghua (Zhang Quan), Cao Yang (Du Xiaojuan’s grandmother), Wang Wei (Zhang Meimei, judge), Jun Xiong (Hali, judge), Li Taiyan (Qu Fengfeng’s manager), Lv Wanchun (Han Xin), Zhang Tong (Li, doctor), Huang Zhirong (Dong, car washer), Chen Hui (Crazy Ju, bar manager), Ou Yang (Zheng, kebab-shop boss), Zhu Jialiang (MMA MC), Ji Tianyu (Perfect Diva MC), Ge Xingyu (Xiaowang, boxing-school kid), Tan Wenjing (pianist/guzheng player), Alain Ngalani (Joe Weah, boxer), Luo Haoming (Miyamato Takeshi, boxer), Livici Covalschi (Keno Hagi, boxer), Hasanov Sadig (Sergei Petrov, boxer), Cai Shujie (Ruonan), Wang Mu (Dingding), Chen Huiyi (Perfect Diva director), Hong Weiliang (commercials director).
Release: Hong Kong, tba; China, 8 Nov 2019.