Hero

世间有她

China/Hong Kong, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 115 mins.

Directors: Li Shaohong 李少红 (I), Chen Chong 陈冲 [Joan Chen] (II), Zhang Aijia 张艾嘉 [Sylvia Chang] (III).

Rating: 6/10.

Triptych of Covid stories has little new but does contain a strong performance by actress Zhou Xun and a notable middle segment directed by Chen Chong [Joan Chen].

STORY

China, 2020. I: On 23 Jan, in Wuhan city, Hubei province, central China, Shen Yue (Zhou Xun) discovers she’s infected with Covid, goes to a hospital but finds no beds are available. Back in her flat, her mother-in-law Li Ju (Xu Di) wants to take Shen Yue’s husband Yang Kai (Bai Ke) and young son Dongdong (Yu Jingshuo) back with her to Shiyan city in the north of the province but is forced to stay on as the city goes into lockdown. Shen Yue isolates herself in a separate room and celebrates Chinese New Year, on 25 Jan, “virtually” by phone. When Li Ju develops a fever, both women tell Yang Kai and Dongdong to stay in the nearby vacant flat of a work colleague of Shen Yue. Alone together, Shen Yue and Li Ju argue even more than usual; but eventually Li Ju becomes more accepting of her daughter-in-law and arranges a respirator for her when she needs one. But after Shen Yue’s fever passes, Li Ju faints and is rushed to hospital. II: On 21 Jan, in Beijing, Shen Yue’s younger cousin, Zhou Xiaolu (Huang Miyi), is visiting her parents for Chinese New Year, having left her boyfriend Li Zhaohua (Yi Yangqianxi) back at their flat in Wuhan. In a supermarket she bumps into old schoolfriend Li Jiaqi (Ma Xinmo), who reminds her about a male school friend, Zhang Yimin (Batu), who always liked her and is now a successful restaurateur in the city. Zhou Xiaolu’s parents (Tan Yang, Zhang Lu), who always liked Zhang Yimin, spontaneously invite him and Li Jiaqi to Zhou Xiaolu’s birthday party in a few days’ time. Zhou Xiaolu keeps in constant touch by phone with Li Zhaohua, who may have caught Covid. That evening she visits her grandmother (Zhu Yafen), with whom she is close, and says she’s planning to marry Li Zhaohua in the spring. She tells Li Zhaohua she’s already bought a train ticket to be with him in Wuhan, but he tells her to stay in Beijing. While sleeping over at her grandmother’s, Zhou Xiaolu hears Wuhan has locked down, and also that Li Zhaohua is feeling weak. On 25 Jan Zhou Xiaolu celebrates Chinese New Year with family and relatives. Next day Li Zhaohua says he feels much better; but later she is unable to reach him by phone. III: On 19 Feb, in Hong Kong, the city has none of its usual bustle. Newspaper photo-journalist Liang Jingsi (Zheng Xiuwen) is collecting Covid stories on the streets; her husband He Daren (Feng Delun), from whom she is separated, is busy doing the same thing for TV, though he promises to come by on the weekend and take their two young children, Dani and Ben, for a day out. Liang Jingsi has a Filipina maid, Luanna (Flora Joanne M.), to help her out at home, and her own mother (Bao Qijing) also comes by, though she’s mostly just a busybody. He Daren takes the two children out for a day by the sea. Soon afterwards, however, the younger one, Ben, falls ill and is hospitalised. As his parents wait for the results, they argue about their marriage and review the whole situation they’re in.

REVIEW

Three Covid stories – set in Wuhan, Beijing and Hong Kong, and made by separate teams – make up the portmanteau feature Hero 世间有她, a so-so addition to the sub-genre whose only distinguishing features are a notable performance by Mainland actress Zhou Xun 周迅 in the opening story and a well-directed middle segment by US-based Chen Chong 陈冲 [Joan Chen], both of which combine to give it an extra point. Coming on the heels of other Covid portmanteau exercises like the four-part Embrace Again 穿过寒冬拥抱你 (2021) and five-part Ode to the Spring 你是我的春天 (2022) – both ho-hum at best – Hero‘s only original take is that the three stories each have a female protagonist and revolve more around the theme of true love (lost/found) than around the physical drama of the epidemic (already well handled by the non-portmanteau Chinese Doctors 中国医生, 2021). After the success of Doctors (RMB1.3 billion) and Embrace (RMB937 million) in 2021, the box-office puff rapidly went out of Covid movies: Spring tanked this summer with only RMB31 million. Hero was marketed on Zhou’s participation – even though she’s no longer an automatic box-office draw – but performed little better this autumn, with a meh RMB56.5 million.

Dedicated to “each of you who is still looking for kindness and love in difficult times”, the three stories, as in Spring, have no separate titles, simply datelines, and are only tangentially connected. The first, set in Wuhan itself, is directed in no-nonsense fashion by veteran Li Shaohong 李少红, 67, and centres on an apparently successful woman, her young husband and child, and her mother-in-law who end up trapped in the same flat as the city goes into lockdown and the heroine and mother-in-law catch the lurgy. In several memorable scenes Zhou, now in her late 40s, bounces off 60-something Beijing-born veteran Xu Di 许娣 (the sick mother back home in Begin, Again 亲爱的 新年好, 2019) as the naggy mother-in-law, but it’s Zhou’s strong, assured performance that holds the episode together as the plot gets a bit weepie at the edges. The sequence where we see just her facial reactions when her character gets a phone call from her parents is a tiny master-class in involving acting, helped by you-are-there camerawork by Li’s regular d.p., husband Zeng Nianping 曾念平.

Chen’s episode, written by herself, rings the changes by being in b&w, apart from the images on the young lovers’ mobile phones as they tirelessly keep in touch between Beijing (she) and Wuhan (he). Though it’s a little hard to empathise with a story largely played out across phone screens, Chen draws good performances, especially from newcomer Huang Miyi 黄米依 (To Be with You 我的青春有个你, 2021) as the young woman, and is helped by sensitive scoring from Japanese composer Umebayashi Shigeru 梅林茂 and an intimate feel to the widescreen images by Hong Kong-raised d.p. Zhang Zile 张子乐 [Jonathan Young], especially when the couple go to bed “virtually” with each other one night. Chen, 61, has had variable success with her handful of excursions behind the camera but here she’s discovered a simple, “pure” style that somewhat harks back to her first and best outing, Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl 天浴 (1998).

Alas, the final episode, written and directed by the very experienced Zhang Aijia 张艾嘉 [Sylvia Chang], 69, is the least impressive of the trio. Set in Hong Kong, with dialogue in Cantonese and English, it’s largely a showcase for actress-singer Zheng Xiuwen 郑秀文 [Sammi Cheng] with a little bit of help from fellow Hong Konger Feng Delun 冯德伦 [Stephen Fung] as the husband she’s in the middle of divorcing. Zhang’s episode is the only one of the three to discuss wife/husband roles – largely in a major argument that dominates the segment – but her script is more interesting for the way in which she subtly makes the point that the two media-ites are happy to reshape reality in their daytime jobs but can’t handle even the basics of real life. Both actors are kind-of-okay in their own ways (Feng largely calm, Zheng mostly hand-waving) but the segment has an inconsequential feel, capped by a platitudinous coda about “love”.

The film’s Chinese title literally means “The World Has Her”. In the main title the letters “Her” are emphasised more that the “o”. Really.

CREDITS

Presented by Meridian Entertainment (Qingdao) (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN). Produced by Horgos Rosat Media & Entertainment (CN), Meridian Entertainment (CN), Red on Red (HK).

Script: Gao Xuan, Ren Baoru (I); Chen Chong [Joan Chen] (II); Zhang Aijia [Sylvia Chang] (III). Photography: Zeng Nianping (I); Zhang Zile [Jonathan Young] (II); Ye Shaoqi (III). Editing: Ye Wanting (I); Zhou Xiaolin (II); Huang Hai (III). Editing advice: Zhou Xinxia. Music: Liao Jiawei (I); Umebayashi Shigeru (II); Huang Ailun [Alan Wong], Weng Weiying [Janet Yung] (III). Music supervision: Yu Fei. Production design: Piao Ruomu [Pan Lai] (II); Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung] (III). Art direction: Dong Zhiliang (I); Zhang Nan (II); Cai Huiyan (III). Styling: Tian Zhuangzhunag (I); Zhong Mei (II); Yuan Yunming (III). Sound: Wu Jiang (I), Huang Zheng (II); Du Duzhi (III). Car stunts: An Bo. Executive direction: Zhang Fuqiang (I).

Cast: I: Zhou Xun (Shen Yue), Xu Di (Li Ju), Bai Ke (Yang Kai, Li Ju’s son/Shen Yue’s husband), Su Xiaoming (Ming), Yu Jingshuo (Dongdong). II: Yi Yangqianxi (Li Zhaohua), Huang Miyi (Zhou Xiaolu), Batu (Zhang Yimin), Zhu Yafen (Zhou Xiaolu’s grandmother), Ma Xinmo (Li Jiaqi), Zhang Lu (Zhou Xiaolu’s mother), Tan Yang (Zhou Xiaolu’s father), Xing Jun (Zhou Xiaolu’s grandmother), Zhang Xiaoling (Zhou Xiaolu’s aunt), Dong Xin (Zhou Xiaolu’s uncle). III: Zheng Xiuwen [Sammi Cheng] (Liang Jingsi/Chelsea), Feng Delun [Stephen Fung] (He Daren/Darren), Bao Qijing [Paw Hee-ching] (Liang Jingsi’s mother), Fang Ping [Henry Fong] (Liang Jingsi’s father), Zheng Zicheng (father in park), Flora Joanne M. (Luanna, Filipina maid). Plus: Shen Shen (Xiaozhan, nurse), Xiao Yang, Feng Deli (police), Han Qingru, Han Xue (doctors).

Release: China, 9 Sep 2022; Hong Kong, 17 Nov 2022.