Where Are We Going, Dad?
爸爸去哪儿
China, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 88 mins.
Directors: Xie Dikui 谢涤葵, Lin Yan 林妍.
Rating: 4/10.
First cinema spin-off of a Mainland TV reality show is a footnote for local fans only.
STORY
Guangzhou, southern China, the present day. After a short period apart, the five families from season one of the TV reality show Where Are We Going? Dad 爸爸去哪儿 hook up again and see what is in store for them this time. They are Taiwan actor-singer-racing driver Lin Zhiying, 39, and his daughter Xiaoxiaozhi, aka Kimi, 4; Mainland comic Guo Tao, 44, and his son Guo Zirui, aka Stone, 7; diver-turned-actor Tian Liang, 34, and his daughter Tian Yucheng, aka Cindy, 6; director Wang Yuelun, 40, and his daughter Wang Shiling, aka Angela, 4; and model-actor Zhang Liang, 32, and his son Yuexuan, nicknamed Tiantian, 6. After meeting at Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport, they are driven to Guangzhou Chimelong Safari Park, where they are met by their host Li Rui, playing the safari village head. After surrendering their mobile phones and computers, each pair is assigned a jungle hut and the father has to cook a dinner of dumplings. Next morning, some go to feed and clean the teeth of some hippopotami while others compete in mucking out some elephants. Next, the fathers take it in turns to enter a snake cake and retrieve a box while the children feed baby carnivores. In the afternoon, they all visit the Bird Kingdom and then play with pandas. In the evening, they all fool around during an outdoor barbecue and then go to a fancy dress show in the park.
REVIEW
The production team rather than the celebrities are the real stars of Where Are We Going, Dad? 爸爸去哪儿, China’s first feature-film spin-off of a TV reality show. Teaming well-known fathers with their tiny sprogs as they traipsed across China and met various challenges along the way, Hunan TV’s Where Are We Going? Dad 爸爸去哪儿 was based on the format Dad! Where Are We Going? 아빠! 어디가? (2013) by South Korea’s MBC network. The first season was a huge success when broadcast during Oct-Dec 2013, and a second season, with five new dads, was broadcast this summer [2014]. In the meantime, the original group was quickly reassembled for this cinema spin-off, shot in Guangzhou, southern China, across five days in mid-Dec 2013. Seven weeks later it went on to gross a giant RMB700 million during CNY and promptly set off a whatever-is-happening-to-Chinese-cinema debate among media commentators.
The movie won’t mean a lot to anyone who hasn’t seen the original show, and even less to anyone who doesn’t recognise the celebrities involved. While the TV show had the fresh hook of isolating dads with their young kids in remote locations, and developing considerable emotional depth across 12 episodes, the movie, which barely runs 90 minutes and is set during two days in a comfy safari park in Guangzhou, has none of the above plus-points and is more like a footnote to the first season. The “challenges” they face are also pretty feeble: the dads have to cook a dumpling dinner and enter a cage with a remarkably comatose snake, while the sprogs fool around with cute animals and each other.
The celebrities – Mainland comic Guo Tao 郭涛, diver-turned-actor Tian Liang 天亮, director Wang Yuelun 王岳伦, model-actor Zhang Liang 张亮 and Taiwan actor-singer-racing driver Lin Zhiying 林志颖 – desperately try to keep things fun and lively but actually look more relaxed when they’re away from their kids and joshing with each other. The latter, ranging from four to seven years old, are more natural, with Wang and Lin’s daughters throwing crying tantrums when they don’t win stars, Tian’s daughter throwing cute-kitty poses, and Zhang’s son observing everything with a cool detachment.
Most of the kudos goes to the production crew headed by Hunan TV director Xie Dikui 谢涤葵, from the original show, and Lin Yan 林妍, an assistant director on hit rom-com Love Is Not Blind 失恋33天 (2011). Chief editor Liu Lei 刘磊 (Love Is Not Blind; Up in the Wind 等风来, 2013) and his team have assembled a tight package, with some neat cross-cutting, from the hours of footage, and d.p. Gao Kun 高琨 and his 23-camera team have produced consistently good-looking material, including inserts of flora and fauna. In traditional Chinese TV style, the film is plastered with pop-up text and graphics, plus perky mickey-mouse music. A sudden cut to a spectacular fancy-dress show gives the film a much-needed shot in the arm at the end.
The South Korean format has reportedly also been sold to Vietnam and Russia. In addition, the cast of the film version is going it alone and reuniting for a fictional movie, Emperor’s Holidays 爸爸的假期, directed by Wang and set for release on CNY 2015.
CREDITS
Presented by Hunan EE-Media Film & TV Production (CN), Guangdong Blue Flame Cultural Communication (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Qiyu Cinema Culture Media (CN).
Script: Peng Kai, Wang Weihong, Pan Xichen, Luo Yi, Xiao Ya, Wang Haifeng, Huang Dan, Yan Li, Liu Shiwei, Hu Hongyi, Shi Dong. Photography: Gao Kun. Editing: Liu Lei. Music: Tan Yizhe. Title song music: Ye Shengtao. Lyrics: Wu Mengzhi, Ye Shengtao. End title music/lyrics: Man Jiang. Art direction: Li Jia. Costume design: Fan Xiaoying. Sound: Wang Danrong, Ma Niu. Visual effects: Hong Jun (Open Film). Special effects: Wang Shuxin. Title animation: Zhou Yabo, Wang Shuai. Main/end titles: Sun Diandian, Zhou Yabo, Liu Yang. Executive directors: Jiang Liang, Xue Yishui, Mu Ying, Mao Jinfeng, Hu Xiangcheng, Pan Menluo, Shi Geyao, Liu Zheng, Nie Jing.
Cast: Lin Zhiying (himself), Xiaoxiaozhi (herself, his daughter Kimi), Guo Tao (himself), Guo Zirui (himself, his son “Stone”), Tian Liang (himself), Tian Yucheng (herself, his daughter Cindy), Wang Yuelun (himself), Wang Shiling (herself, his daughter Angela), Zhang Liang (himself), Zhang Yuexuan (himself, his son Tiantian), Li Rui (himself, the park’s village head), He Jiong (himself, the fancy dress show MC).
Release: China, 31 Jan 2014.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 23 Aug 2014.)