My Love
你的婚礼
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 114 mins.
Director: Han Tian 韩天.
Rating: 6/10.
Rom-com/youth movie is a nice-looking but not very involving tale of a relationship spread across 15 years.
STORY
A town in southern China, 2021. School sports teacher Zhou Xiaoqi (Xu Guanghan) receives a letter that sparks memories of his long, up-and-down relationship with You Yongci (Zhang Ruonan). (In 2006, at the age of 17, he had been a star of his high school’s swimming team but was more interested in fooling around and brawling than studying to get to university. One day he saw for the first time You Yongci, a new transfer student, and immediately started coming on to her. She was amused by his boyish pranks and one day had invited him to play truant and go with her over the school’s wall to the “woods”. Thinking it’s an invitation to have sex, Zhou Xiaoqi had gone with her, only to find it was the name of her favourite kebab shop in the town. Zhou Xiaoqi had found himself up against the cocky Shark (Liu Xun), a rival for You Yongci’s affections who’d challenged Zhou Xiaoqi to beat him in a forthcoming swimming competition. In the event, Shark had won, but You Yongci had stuck with Zhou Xiaoqi. However, fate then suddenly pulled them apart, without You Yongci even saying goodbye. Two years later, in 2008, Zhou Xiaoqi had by chance discovered, via his pal Zhang Fang (Ding Guansen), where You Yongci was; he studied frantically, and in 2009, along with Zhang Fang, had got into Huaxing University, just to be with her. She was studying fashion design, as she’d always enjoyed drawing. She had been pleased to see him but said she had a boyfriend; Zhang Fang discovered his name was Chen Hao’er (Liang Jingkang), captain of the football team. Undaunted, Zhou Xiaoqi had even signed up with the girls’ cheerleading team, just to be close to You Yongci. She had stayed friendly with him, saying she’d like him to be a friend for life as she’d had to move around so much. When she was in her room with a cold on her birthday, Zhou Xiaoqi had arranged a firework display for her but she never realised it was thanks to him. However, one day he’d lost his temper and beaten up Chen Hao’er on the football field, well knowing it would end his relationship with You Yongci. The years had passed: Zhang Fang had opened a bar, other friends Chen Chen (Guo Cheng) had started working for a law firm and Chang Fan (Yan Zidong) in online sales, and Zhou Xiaoqi had a nice girlfriend, He Xiaohui. By 2015, when Zhou Xiaoqi was 26, his career as a professional swimmer had been going well at a provincial level but he still dreamed of becoming a national champion. One day he saw You Yongci in the street and they ended up talking. She was working as a model in commercials and had no boyfriend at the time. After various ups and downs, including an accident she was involved in that injured him, she had finally got a design job in Sep 2015 and they had moved in together. The following year she bought rings for them to wear, as a token of their love. In 2017 Zhou Xiaoqi had learned he was fully rehabilitated after the accident but would never be able to resume the kind of training needed to compete at national level. His frustration that he would have to remain a school sports teacher increased when You Yongci said her company wanted to send her to study in Milan for two years. Their relationship had broken down again and they had parted.) Now, four years later, in 2021, Zhou Xiaoqi has an invitation to You Yongci’s wedding and needs to decide whether to attend.
REVIEW
The ups and downs of a couple across 15 years, from high school to their early 30s, My Love 你的婚礼 is an utterly generic rom-com/youth movie that’s often engaging but fails in the long run to be as moving as it should. That’s partly due to the lack of any special chemistry between its two leads but also to a script that, after an interesting first half, doesn’t have much to add except more of the same. Very smoothly packaged, and making the most of scenic locations in southern coastal China, it’s been a surprising hit of the May Day holiday period, clearly connecting with its target early-20s female audience and giving the expected holiday winner – period spy drama Cliff Walkers 悬崖之上 by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 – a serious run for its money. Despite mixed reactions, it’s taken almost RMB700 million in the first eight days, beating Cliff Walkers by a small margin; the latter, however, may prove to have more stamina in the long run. [My Love‘s final tally was RMB789 million; that for Cliff Walkers was RMB1.19 billion.]
The film is the second solo feature by Beijing-born writer-director Han Tian 韩天, 36, following the well-written and much more engagingly played Only the Wind Knows 那一场呼啸而过的青春 (2017), a student rom-com/drama set in the mid-1990s in the rough northeast. That was (thinly) based on a novel; this time he and his regular writing partner Jiao Tingting 焦婷婷, plus lead writer Zhang Ying 张影 (Bad Daddy 再见，爸爸, 2015), have taken a South Korean film, On Your Wedding Day 너의 결혼식 (2018), written and directed by Yi Seok-geun 이석근 | 李锡根 (see poster, left), and translated it pretty faithfully – with appropriate cultural adjustments – to southern coastal China. The male lead character in the Korean original is into American football, whereas here he’s into swimming; but apart from that the two films are structurally almost identical, starting with a contemporary sequence before flashbacking for most of the movie. Even the running times are almost the same.
As the boyish, playful Zhou Xiaoqi, who’s more into fooling around than studying for university, Taiwan actor Xu Guanghan 许光汉, 30, makes a personable romantic partner. In his first lead role, Xu, who played the shy older brother in the Taiwan drama A Sun 阳光普照 (2019), convincingly plays a cheeky teenager in the first half and a gradually maturing young man in the second; but the crucial final scene, set in the present, somehow doesn’t ring as true as it did in the Korean version. Maybe it sits better in a Korean rather than a Mainland Chinese social context; maybe it’s because the long-limbed central romance hasn’t really convinced, despite flashes of charm. What’s indisputable is that Xu doesn’t get a lot back from his co-star, Mainland actress Zhang Ruonan 张若楠, 24, whose performance is adequate at best. Largely a TVD actress, Zhang, who was equally open-faced but bland in two productions by Guo Jingming 郭敬明 (Cry Me a Sad River 悲伤逆流成河, 2018, and The End of Endless Love 如果声音不记得, 2020, both directed by Luo Luo 落落) lacks any special quality that would make the hero’s desire for her across 15 years convincing. (In the Korean version she’s a much quirkier, more self-assured character.)
Other roles are strictly supporting, and don’t make much impact, further throwing the burden of the film on the two leads. Technically all is very smooth and photogenic, especially the neatly composed widescreen photography by Chen Lin 陈琳 (rom-com I Love That Crazy Little Thing 那件疯狂的小事叫爱情, 2016) and Yu Mingyuan 宇明远, the musical montages, and other diversions to which the genre is heir to. The film was shot during summer 2020 in Fuzhou, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Xiamen, all in coastal Fujian province. The Chinese title literally means “Your Wedding Ceremony”.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Beijing Dream Chaser Pictures (CN).
Script: Zhang Ying, Jiao Tingting, Han Tian. Photography: Chen Lin, Yu Mingyuan. Editing: Zhu Lin. Music supervision: Chen Jianqi, Luo Enni. Sound: Long Xiaozhu, Zhang Jinyan. Visual effects: Lai Weijia.
Cast: Xu Guanghan (Zhou Xiaoqi), Zhang Ruonan (You Yongci), Ding Guansen (Zhang Fang), Yan Zidong (Chang Fan), Guo Cheng (Chen Chen), Wang Shasha (Wang Yuke), Liang Jingkang (Chen Hao’er), Liu Xun (Shayu/Shark).
Release: China, 30 Apr 2021.