Till the End of the World
南极之恋
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D, 116 mins.
Director: Wu Youyin 吴有音.
Rating: 7/10.
Antarctic-set romantic drama profits from two good leads and smoothly morphing direction.
STORY
Antarctica, the present day. As all flights have been suspended for weather reasons, arrogant young businessman Wu Fuchun (Zhao Youting), head of Forever Wedding Sevice, has chartered his own from a dodgy Spanish pilot (Jae Felipe) to go to Qianjin polar station. There, in two days’ time, he plns to publicise his company’s IPO as well as the start of wedding ceremonies in the Antarctic. Also on board for the free ride are a Russian, Natasha (Anastasia Berestova), and high-altitude physicist Jing Ruyi (Yang Zishan), who thinks Wu Fuchun is a simply an arrogant nouveau riche. When the plane crashes after being caught in a sudden storm, only Wu Fuchun and Jing Ruyi survive, though she suffers a fractured shinbone. They manage to survive another storm by digging a hole, and Wu Fuchun then carries Jiang Ruyi to an an abandoned hut nearby where, under her dierction, he resets her fracture. Jiang Ruyi calculates that China’s Aurora polar station is only 20 kilometres away, but it could be in any direction. They have 75 days to find it before the fuel in the hut’s generator runs out and winter closes in. With her bedridden, Wu Fuchun has to go exploring on his own. After two weeks they discover they’re on a peninsula, so Aurora must be somewhere to the south. As the food left in the hut starts to run out, Wu Fuchun tries fishing but falls into a crevass on the way back. After two days there, he just makes it back to the hut in time, as Jing Ruyi had always said she would commit suicide if left alone for more than two days. Wu Fuchun subsequently suffers more setbacks, including snow blindness and falling into the sea, but these serve to bring the two of them closer together as time starts to run out.
REVIEW
A blend of odd-couple rom-com, fantastical love story and Antarctic survival drama, Till the End of the World 南极之恋 doesn’t quite manage to balance all its disparate elements but is a pretty satisfying entertainment for those prepared to go with the flow. Good chemistry between Taiwan’s Zhao Youting 赵又廷 [Mark Chao] and Mainland actress Yang Zishan 杨子珊 – last seen together as a mismatched couple in the hit So Young 致我们终将逝去的青春 (2013) – as well as excellent production values and smooth direction, all manage to sustain this two-hander over almost two hours with little downtime. Locally it was rewarded with box office of RMB234 million, more than respectable considering its limited appeal.
The film is actually the second adaptation by Shanghai-born writer/commercials director Wu Youyin 吴有音, 40, of one of his own novels, after the unreleased cross-generational love drama 白相 (literally, “Playing Around” or “Having Fun”), shot in 2013. Starring Huang Xuan 黄轩 and Jiang Wenli 蒋雯丽, it was produced by Guan Hu 管虎 and based on Wu’s 2006 novel 爱比死更冷 (“Love Is Colder Than Death”). World, based on his 2014 novel 南极绝恋 (“Love at the South Pole”, also the meaning of the film’s similar title), incorporates his personal fascination with Antarctica, which he’d already visited four times – twice as a member of scientific expeditions – before shooting exteriors there in late 2015. (See novel’s cover, left.)
The film wastes no time with any elaborate setup, simply introducing the two protagonists as they meet in a small chartered plane. He’s a cocky, money-obsessed nouveau riche who’s launching weddings in Antarctica to publicise his company’s IPO, she’s a nerdy, Plain Jane physicist who thinks he’s appalling. After the plane crashes in a storm (with cartoony VFX for 3-D audiences), and the pilot and third passenger are conveniently killed off, the film relies entirely on the two leads for the next 95 minutes – and for long stretches on Zhao alone, as the more active of the pair. In So Young it was Yang who had the more proactive role and Zhao the more boorish one; in World the roles are reversed, with Yang’s character the quieter one who applies scientific rigour to their situation and Zhao’s the impulsive one who has to do all the work while she’s bed-bound with a leg fracture. With Zhao carrying a lot of the movie with physical antics – falling down, playing with seals and penguins etc – it’s to Yang’s credit that she manages to make her role much at all, let alone the spiritual centre of the finale.
Director Wu’s gradual morphing of the material towards that end is nicely calibrated. The early odd-couple setup is milked for as much com as possible before the stronger survival plot takes over: the pair have 75 days to find a nearby Chinese polar station before their generator runs out out of fuel. The script manages enough variations on the daily expeditions by Zhao’s character to sustain this for another half-hour before the love story starts to kick in around the hour mark, cleverly sparked by him being trapped in a crevass for two days and her thinking he may never return. When he subsequently suffers from snow blindness, and then from half-drowning in the ocean, she takes care of him with increasing intimacy, and finally the cocky tŭháo 土豪 learns there’s more to life than money.
The score by Japanese veteran Joe Hisaishi 久石让 is a big help in all this, subtly changing the mood from the crevass sequence onwards without overdoing the romance. The film’s final leap into a spiritual dimension doesn’t quite work, though it still carries an emotional charge similar to that of Seventy-Seven Days 七十七天 (2017), another “survival” movie that also pivoted on two physically differentiated characters. Throughout, Wu’s direction is unobtrusive and all in the service of his actors, with studio-shot interiors convincingly blending with Antarctic exteriors to maintain a sense of credibility. Wu only stumbles briefly at the 80-minute mark, with some cute stuff with a CG penguin the pair “adopt” – a playful interlude that almost breaks the aforementioned credibility.
End titles show the first Chinese Research Team arriving in Antarctica in Dec 1984, as well as the film’s crew being hosted by scientists at the Great Wall polar station in late Nov 2015. Creative producer was Hong Kong’s Guan Jinpeng 关锦鹏 [Stanley Kwan], now seemingly retired from directing, whose role may explain the presence of two Hong Kong DPs, veteran Li Yaohui 黎耀辉 [Lai Yiu-fai] plus newer name Liu Zhihui 刘志辉, both of whom contribute fine, realistic work. Also notable is the majestic aerial photography by Liu Wei 刘伟.
CREDITS
Presented by C2M Pictures (Shanghai) (CN), C2M Pictures (Ningbo) (CN), Beijing Skywheel Entertainment (CN), Hehe Pictures (CN), Phoenix Legend Films (CN), Trapezes Production (CN), Beijing Qitai Ocean Culture & Media (CN).
Script: Wu Youyin. Script advice: Ha Zhichao. Novel: Wu Youyin. Photography: Li Yaohui [Lai Yiu-fai], Liu Zhihui. Editing: Tu Yiran. Music: Joe Hisaishi. Production design: Lin Mu. Art direction: Zhao Ziran. Styling: Lin Mu. Costumes: Feng Shasha. Sound: Fu Kang, Steve Miller, Tan Ailong, Zhang Bin. Special effects: Wang Ke. Visual effects: Gim Uk (Dexter Studios). Polar science advice: Yang Huigen. Script advice
Cast: Zhao Youting [Mark Chao] (Wu Fuchun), Yang Zishan (Jing Ruyi), Jae Felipe (pilot), Anastasia Berestova (Natasha).
Release: China, 1 Feb 2018.