Cha Cha for Twins
宝米恰恰
Taiwan, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 109 mins.
Directors: Yang Yiqian 杨贻茜, Wang Chuanzong 王传宗.
Rating: 7/10.
Taiwan actress Huang Peijia is amazing in an infectious, if over-long, high-school romance.
STORY
Gaoxiong city, southern Taiwan, the present day. Identical twins Zhang Baoni (Huang Peijia) and Zhang Mi’ni (Huang Peijia), 17, are both students at Gaoxiong Senior High School, though in different classes. Zhang Baoni, the elder by five minutes, is keen on sports, especially basketball, and hopes to get a sports scholarship to university. Zhang Mi’ni keeps skipping sports practice and is better at her studies than Zhang Baoni. The two are devoted to each other but are fed up with always being compared, and Zhang Baoni especially is starting to long for her own space and identity. At school, Zhang Mi’ni is courted by gifted male student Wang Youguo (Ouyang Lun) but gives him a hard time, partly because she’s inexperienced at dealing with boys. Zhang Baoni has no boyfriend but one day falls for Xu Yongping (Jiang Kangzhe) while helping him with an injury. Xu Yongping is tall and nerdy, and not very good at his studies, despite the urging of his elder sister Xu Meijia (Zhang Shiying), who now runs the family’s shady underworld business since their parents retired. Xu Yongping tries to thank Zhang Baoni for helping him that day but mistakenly courts Zhang Mi’ni instead, not realising Zhang Baoni has a twin sister.
REVIEW
Cha Cha for Twins 宝米恰恰 is exactly what it says on the label – a formalised back-and-forth between two identical sisters as they start to define their own space in their late teens when boys and hormones kick in as a distraction from studies. The script by first-time director Yang Yiqian 杨贻茜, 31 – also known under her writer’s pen-name of Yang Ning 杨宁 – is semi-autobiographical: she was herself once a student at Gaoxiong Senior High School (where a lot of the movie was shot) and is the elder twin of musician Yang Wanqian 杨琬茜 (who wrote the perky score). Her screenplay pushes pretty thin plot material farther than it can actually stand – the dramatic trigger is a misunderstanding over melon buns – and the final 20 minutes show the strain as all the Is are dotted and the Ts crossed. But as a Taiwan-cute high-school romance, Cha Cha is very infectious for most of its running time, thanks to a tour-de-force performance by lead actress Huang Peijia 黄姵嘉 in the double role, amazingly natural visual effects in sequences where both sisters are on screen at the same time, and its convincing portrait of emotional discombobulation between the devoted but subtly competitive teenagers.
In her first leading role, actress-model Huang, 24, is simply amazing at giving the two girls – sporty, hard-working Zhang Baoni and more mercurial, naturally gifted Zhang Mi’ni – different personalities (and even slightly different looks) within the frame of two twins who can even read each other’s feelings. As the voice-over narrator, Zhang Baoni naturally emerges as the more sympathetic character, as well as the more central one in what is basically a rites-of-passage movie. Her desire to be seen for whom she is as an individual is underlined by her own love-at-first-sight relationship with the tall, nerdy Xu Yongping (well played by Jiang Kangzhe 姜康哲, who had a supporting role in Au Revoir Taipei 一页台北, 2010) who starts chasing the wrong sister. As Zhang Mi’ni’s own suitor Wang Youguo (aka Yoghurt), newcomer Ouyang Lun 欧阳伦 is okay but in a more colourless role.
Though the three leads are all in their mid-20s, they’re more convincing as high-schoolers than in some films of the same ilk. Supporting roles are fine, with Zhang Jiafang 张嘉方 cute as a flirty, tomboyish schoolmate and Zhang Shiying 张诗盈 (strong in Hokkien dramas Seven Days in Heaven 父后七日, 2010, and Flying Dragon, Dancing Phoenix 龙飞凤舞, 2012) giving the film some occasional oomph as Xu Yongping’s hard-arsed underworld sister.
Co-directed by TV drama director Wang Chuanzong 王传宗, the film is technically smooth and visually unflashy, with good-looking summery photography by Fu Shiying 傅士英.
CREDITS
Presented by Reel Asia Pictures (TW), Pomi International (TW), Ko-Hiong-Lang (TW). Produced by Reel Asia Pictures (TW), Greener Grass Productions (TW).
Script: Yang Yiqian. Photography: Fu Shiying. Editing: Chen Xiaodong. Music: Yang Wanqian. Song/vocals: He Xinsui. Art direction: Wu Ruoyun. Costume design: Song Hanhui. Sound: Zheng Xuzhi [Frank Cheng]. Visual effects: Chen Zhenguo, Xu Guozhou. Main titles: Wu Dejun, Hong Huizhen, Zhu Jinming. Artistic direction: Huang Wenying.
Cast: Huang Peijia (Zhang Baoni/Poni; Zhang Mi’ni/Mini), Jiang Kangzhe (Xu Yongping), Ouyang Lun (Wang Youguo/Yoghurt), Zhang Shiying (Xu Meijia, Xu Yongping’s elder sister), Li Zhiqi (girls’ father), Li Zhiqin (girls’ mother), Qian Weijuan (herself, basketball trainer), Zhang Jiafang (Gang Mei/Charmy, Zhang Baoni’s schoolfriend), Gao Yingxuan (referee), Wang Ziqiang (teacher), Huang Caiyi (Wang Youguo’s mother), Chen Yanyun (male classmate).
Release: Taiwan, 15 Jun 2012.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 13 May 2013.)