Love Studio

同城邂逅

China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 97 mins.

Directors: Cheng Zhonghao 程中豪, Wang Kai 王凯.

Rating: 5/10.

Mainland remake of South Korea’s Cyrano Agency lacks the original’s craft and characterisation.

STORY

Kunshan, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, west of Shanghai, the present day. Four friends – Yun Fan (Jiang Chao), Xia Wei (Li Mandi), Da Tao (Hei Ge) and Xiaofei (Qi Xuanyu) – have set up Love Commune 爱情公社, a company to help romantically awkward people communicate with the person of their dreams. Their objective is to earn enough money to make a film together. A geeky young photographer, Tianhao (Yu Menglong), hires them to help him arrange a date with a beautiful young woman, Tong Yao (Li Meng), whom he fell for in a park one day. She’s a member of an acting troupe. Love Commune orchestrates some “chance encounters” – “directed” by Yun Fan and “scripted” by Da Tao – but it takes a year, just before she and the troupe are about to leave on a long tour, for Tianhao finally to express his feelings to Tong Yao. After that, a new case comes along for Love Commune but, despite the company’s poor financial state, Yun Fan is unwilling to handle it, as it involves his ex-girlfriend Wang Yan (Zhou Weiting) who dumped him a while ago. He keeps the reason secret from his partners and is over-ruled by them. The client is Zhong Qi (Zhang Lei), a customer manager for a financial fund, who’s bumped into Wang Yan twice and believes they are fated to be together. Love Commune gives the unsophisticated Zhong Qi a makeover and “scripts” further encounters. But they don’t go well, and Xia Wei suspects that Yun Fan is trying to sabotage things because of some previous relationship with Wang Yan. Xia Wei confronts him and he promises not to let it interfere with their work. But then he makes direct contact with Wang Yan, and Zhong Qi sees them together.

REVIEW

Though it’s nowhere acknowledged in the credits, Love Studio 同城邂逅 is a remake – and a pretty average one – of the South Korean hit rom-com, Cyrano Agency 시라노; 연애조작단 (2010), centred on a group of people who construct elaborate scenarios to bring couples together. Cyrano was notable for its beautifully constructed script and sympathetic characters, recalling the great days of South Korean rom-coms and dramas a decade earlier. Love Studio – from the creative team who brought you college rom-com Broadcasting Girl 我的播音系女友 (2014) – looks like another hastily conceived rom-com amid the genre’s continuing craze in the Mainland. As a light comedy-drama centred on Eros’ awkwardnesses, it’s about on the level of The Break-Up Artist 分手达人 (2014), which centred on a separation agency; as a comedy about people who make a living out of managing others’ lives, it lacks the complexity of Three T Company 顽主 (1988) and Personal Tailor 私人订制 (2013). The film is OK on a technical level, and does feature some likeable performances; but even ignoring comparisons with Cyrano Agency, it’s no better than so-so.

In overall structure and bare-bones plotting, Love Studio fairly closely follows the South Korean film – the career highlight so far of writer-director Gim Hyeon-seok 김현석 | 金炫锡 (YMCA Baseball YMCA야구단, 2002; C’est si bon 쎄시봉, 2015). Starting with a side story that introduces the main players and shows the workings of the company (here called Love Commune 爱情公社 rather than Cyrano Agency), it then gets to the main plot: a case involving the ex-girlfriend of Love Commune’s head that he’s unwilling to take on, for obvious reasons. The complications that arise from that are bumpily scripted and light on emotional hooks, with the subplot of the Commune’s female member holding a torch for the head almost lost in the shuffle. The opening story returns to give the movie a happy end, but the main plot is resolved in an offhand way.

The main problem is that the dialogue – by writers Li Zhishuai 李志帅 (Broadcasting Girl) and newcomer Wu Junping 吴军平 – is just not very interesting: this could pass muster in a TV drama series but lacks the spark and special flavour required for a movie. The filmmakers also can’t decide whether Love Studio is a rom-com or a relationships drama. The best bits are in the opening 20-minute story, which features charming performances by actor-singer Yu Menglong 于朦胧 as the gauche beau and Li Meng 李梦 (Young Love Lost 少年巴比伦, 2015) as his dream girl, and also makes fresh use of locations in Kunshan city (between Shanghai and Suzhou). When the film later gets tied up in the problems between the Commune’s head (woodenly played by actor-singer Jiang Chao 姜潮, one of the hunks in the Tiny Times 小时代 quartet) and his ex-girlfriend (slightly better played by Shui-minority actress-model Zhou Weitong 周韦彤), it loses its light touch without putting any emotional depth in its place.

The script squeezes in some references to Cyrano de Bergerac as the ultimate awkward suitor, but they’re played for broad comedy: the client who’s fallen for the head’s ex is an unsophisticated fund manager from Shandong who can’t even pronounce “Cyrano” in standard Mandarin. Comic Zhang Lei 张磊 actually makes this character, with all his braggadocio, the most sympathetic in the whole film, but he gets little help from the surrounding cast, most notably from top-billed Jiang as his “rival”. The other members of the Commune are sympathetically drawn but only actress Li Mandi 李漫荻 gets much of a look-in, as the woman who’s secretly in love with Jiang’s character.

The widescreen photography by Taiwan’s Li Guanqun 李冠群 is clean and bright, and at its most evocative in the opening story set around the waterways of Kunshan. The uncredited music is bland. The film’s Chinese title, which literally means “Chance Encounter(s) in the Same City”, is a widely used term on the internet and dating sites for encounters of the romantic kind, planned or unplanned. Cheng Zhonghao 程中豪, 40, CEO of Shanghai Haoying Media, is credited in the main titles as co-director with Wang Kai 王凯, 29; in the end credits, however, direction is credited solely to Wang, with Chen as producer.

CREDITS

Presented by Cayie Movie & Video Communication (CN), Hao Long (Shanghai) Film (CN), Shanghai Haoying Media (CN), Shanghai Xinghu Pictures (CN), Huawen (Shanghai) Film (CN), Xunli Pictures (Shanghai) (CN), Kunshan Fangzhou Advertising Media (CN).

Script: Li Zhishuai, Wu Junping. Photography: Li Guanqun. Editing: Li Lu. Music: uncredited. Art direction: Li Weizhong. Styling: Wu Junlin. Costumes: Xiao Qingping, Wu Minting. Sound: Yang Jie, Geng Liang. Executive direction: Lei Minghui.

Cast: Jiang Chao (Yun Fan), Zhou Weitong (Wang Yan), Zhang Lei (Zhong Qi), Li Mandi (Xia Wei), Li Meng (Tong Yao), Yu Menglong (Tianhao), Hei Ge (Da Tao), Qi Xuanyu (Xiaofei), Ma Ding (Li Man, Wang Yan’s best friend), Cao Yi (Tong Yao’s cousin), Wang Sijia (guitar tutor), Lei Chenyu (married man), Xia Yuyao (married woman), Zhang Jiajun (proposing man), Han Miaomiao (proposed-to woman), Song Bangchun (troupe’s head), Xia Zhixiang (Wang Yan’s uncle), Lei Minghui (Lu Chen).

Release: China, 11 Mar 2016.