Send Me to the Clouds
送我上青云
China/Hong Hong, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 96 mins.
Director: Teng Congcong 滕丛丛.
Rating: 5/10.
A potentially meaty role for Mainland actress Yao Chen is undercut by an increasingly shallow script.
STORY
China, Nov 2017. Thirtysomething photo-journalist Sheng Nan (Yao Chen) returns from investigating a suspicious country fire with her colleague Mao Cui (Li Jiuxiao) to find she has a tumour in her left ovary. Sheng Nan is surprised, as she admits she’s had no sex life for years, but the doctor tells her the two things are not related. However, she may not be able to fully enjoy sex after surgery. The cost of the operation and chemotherapy will be RMB300,000 and her insurance will not cover the whole amount. Sheng Nan scrambles to get some money together by selling things. Mao Cui says he knows a businessman who wants to hire a ghost writer for his ageing father’s autobiography; the fee is RMB300,000, and the ambitious Mao Cui, who dreams of becoming a successful entrepreneur, says he’ll take 20% commission. The businessman happens to be Li Ping (Liang Guanhua), who was involved in the country fire scandal that Sheng Nan had written about. She is not sure whether to take the job, and first goes to visit her parents. She finds her father (Shi Qiang), who lives apart from his wife and has a mistress, is close to bankruptcy; her mother (Wu Yufang), who accepts the situation, whiles away her time in frothy pursuits. Sheng Nan argues with both of them and keeps her cancer a secret. She calls Mao Cui and says she’ll take the job; but as she boards the bus to Yun mountain, her mother also insists on tagging along, saying she wants to “discover herself” now she’s reached the menopause. En route Sheng Nan meets a good-looking, intelligent photographer, Liu Guangming (Yuan Hong), to whom she takes a liking. Sheng Nan and her mother finally reach the remote, hilltop residence of Li Ping’s 70-year-old father (Yang Xinming), who has devoted himself to painting, calligraphy and natural medicine. He immediately senses that Sheng Nan is not well, and she confides the truth in him. After two days, Sheng Nan has a synopsis ready, and everyone goes down into the town to meet Li Ping and Mao Cui to sign the contract. Old Li has already told Sheng Nan that he despises his idiot son, and the latter’s arrogant stupidity angers her. She tears up the contract. Sheng Nan, her mother and Mao Cui stay over in a local boutique hotel. Mao Cui tries to convince Sheng Nan to cool down and sign the contract but she refuses. Her mother spends the evening with old Li, who has taken a liking to her. Left alone, Sheng Nan, whose operation is in two weeks’ time, meets up with Liu Guangming, to whom she makes a striking proposal.
REVIEW
At the end of Send Me to The Clouds 送我上青云 the central character stands atop a misty hill and cries “Ha!”. Many viewers may well feel the same about this potentially interesting drama that frustratingly fails to build on its early promise. An extended character study of a hard-nosed, thirtysomething photo-journalist who suddenly discover she has ovarian cancer, it’s theoretically a major opportunity for Mainland actress Yao Chen 姚晨, 40, who gets far too few meaty leading parts, and who here also takes the role of creative producer 监制. The role of a career-obsessed woman who neglects personal relationships until it’s too late has strong echoes of Yao’s previous character of an ambitious yuppie lawyer in the very fine child-kidnap drama Lost, Found 找到你 (2018). Her game performance earns Clouds an extra point but she’s let down by an increasingly thin and melodramatic script from first-time writer-director Teng Congcong 滕丛丛, which thrashes around in the final act to no sense of purpose. Box office was a lame RMB29.5 million.
Yao, who takes sole lead billing, dominates the film from the start, as her beanie-hatted, hard-talking reporter is seen investigating a suspicious fire in the countryside with her younger, equally ambitious colleague (Li Jiuxiao 李九霄). Teng’s portrait of modern China is the early stages is blackly comic – a country of casual street aggression, financial scamming, monetary obsession – in which Sheng Nan (Yao) takes her knocks with a resigned acceptance of how things are. Tough on both friends and family, and with a sex life she admits has been “zero for years”, she’s still unprepared for the news that a doctor springs on her. Forced for financial reasons to take a ghost-writing job for an entrepreneur’s ageing father, she sets off to interview her subject in misty Yun mountain.
Though she has difficulty looking like a woman described as “plain”, Yao is terrific in these early scenes, with her experience in comedy giving her role a cynical fibre. The script’s first misstep comes about 20 minutes in when, contrary to all logic, she agrees to her mouthy, menopausal mother (TV veteran Wu Yufang 吴玉芳) coming along on the trip. It’s an obvious writing ploy that undercuts both the reality and Sheng Nan’s profile, especially when, in a parallel strand, the annoying mum and ageing client soon fall for each other. En route, mother and daughter meet a good-looking photographer who says he likes shooting clouds and, in a pretentious conversation amid scenic river gorges, stirs Sheng Nan’s interest.
These and other strands – including the business ambitions of Sheng Nan’s colleague – jostle for prominence as she starts work in the old man’s hilltop retreat. The script finally jumps the rails around the hour mark as Sheng Nan’s sex life suddenly escalates while the screenplay tries to tie up all the various strands, culminating in a surreal jumble of scenes that (along with the suspiciously tight running time) hints at footage culled from deleted material.
Even as the film gradually loses any emotional pull, some individual scenes still hit the mark and Yao, especially, adopts a game attitude even when her unsympathetic character is further asked to do ridiculous things. As Sheng Nan’s money-obsessed, womanising colleague, Li, 29, makes a strong impression in his first major big-screen role, while veteran character actor Yang Xinming 杨新鸣 (the crafty priest in hit Dying to Survive 我不是药神, 2018) under-acts in almost every scene with a sly humour. Both have good chemistry, in different ways, with Yao. As the friendly photographer, TV’s Yuan Hong 袁弘 looks and sounds more like a script device than a believable character.
For her first film, Teng, 34, has drawn on some good talent behind the scenes, from veteran Taiwan d.p. Lin Liangzhong 林良忠 [Jong Lin] (Eat Drink Man Woman 饮食男女, 1994; Blind Mountain 盲山, 2007) whose widescreen photography of the mountainous locations is often too pretty for the shallow script, and Mainland editor Zhang Yifan 张一凡 who’s done sterling work over the years for directors like Jiang Wen 姜文, Lu Chuan 陆川, Ning Hao 宁浩 and Zhang Yibai 张一白.
Veteran director Xie Fei 谢飞 (A Girl from Hunan 湘女萧萧, 1987; Black Snow 本命年, 1990; The Women from the Lake of Scented Souls 香魂女, 1993) is credited with “artistic direction”. The film was shot throughout Dec 2017 in the craggy southern province of Guizhou. The title comes from a saying by the character Xue Baochai in Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber 红楼梦: “With the strength of a good wind, send me to the clouds” (好风凭借力，送我上青云).
CREDITS
Presented by Bad Rabbit (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Edko (Beijing) Films (CN), Irresistible Alpha (HK), Perfect Village Entertainment HK (HK), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Wishart Media (CN), Tianjin Turan Movie (CN), Beijing Tinghai Shibei Picture (CN), Hehe (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Beijing MaxTimes Cultural Development (CN). Produced by Tianjin Turan Movie (CN).
Script: Teng Congcong. Photography: Lin Liangzhong [Jong Lin]. Editing: Zhang Yifan. Music: Wen Zi. Art direction: Li Jianing, Chen Zhen. Costume design: Ye Zhuzhen (for Yao Chen, Li Jiuxiao, Yuan Hong), Wang Shaopo (general). Sound: Wen Bo, Wang Sheng. Visual effects: Zhang Chao, Zhang Chunmiao (Beijing Soar Dragon of Legend). Artistic direction: Xie Fei. Executive direction: Liu Mingqi.
Cast: Yao Chen (Sheng Nan), Li Jiuxiao (Mao Cui/Simao), Wu Yufang (Liang Meizhi, Sheng Nan’s mother), Yang Xinming (Old Li, Li Ping’s father), Liang Guanhua (Li Ping), Yuan Hong (Liu Guangming), Shi Qiang (Sheng Nan’s father), Zhao Yong (old soldier on mountain), Lu Shan (Liu Guangming’s wife), Gu Haoyuan (Liu Guangming’s son).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Asian New Talent Awards), 17 Jun 2019.
Release: China, 16 Aug 2019; Hong Kong, tba.