Dancing Elephant
跳舞吧！大象
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 113 mins.
Director: Lin Yuxian 林育贤.
Rating: 6/10.
Feel-good comedy about a group of losers also has a more nuanced side beyond the knockabout humour.
STORY
Jinzhou city, 2003. Li Chunxia (Wang Hecen), the 13-year-old daughter of zookeeper Li Dajun (Jiao Gang), dreams of leaving her hometown by winning a place, via a talent contest, at Beijing Dance Academy’s affiliated secondary school. Her three best friends at dance school – Liu Qianqian (Lin Kaixin), Cheng Xiaoguo (Gu Yuxi) and Bai Tang (Peng Yihang) – have the same dream. Together, the four friends call themselves The World’s Greatest Swan Girls 宇宙无敌天鹅少女, after Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake. Unfortunately, on the day of the talent show, while defending her friends against some pesky boys, Li Chunxia is knocked unconscious by a van. In 2019, after being in a coma for 15 years, Li Chunxia (Jin Chunhua) suddenly wakes up in hospital; but she still has the mental level of a 13-year-old and, due to hormone disorder brought on by her medicine, is now obese. She’s cared for by her father but is mocked by local children for looking like an elephant. However, she still dreams of being a dancer again and sets her eyes on taking part in the televised Free Dance competition. She applies at the grandly-named Soul Dancer Training Class 灵魂舞者培训班, run by failed ballet dancer Pi Chunpeng (Ai Lun) who claims to have been a student of Pina Bausch. However, he gently puts her off, saying she needs three others to make up a class. Undeterred, she tracks down her three friends. The only one still dancing is Liu Qianqian (Peng Yang), who’s now a single mother with a young son and slumming it as a pole dancer; Cheng Xiaoguo (Song Nanxi) is a failed mature student still trying to prove herself to her parents; and Bai Tang (Jing Fang) is an aggressive tomboy who can’t keep a job. Feeling they owe her a considerable debt, they eventually agree to join her – though Liu Qianqian demands a bigger cut if they win the RMB1 million prize money, and also to choreograph their qualifying routine. Grudgingly, Pi Chunpeng takes them on, as he needs the money. Their novelty routine is chaotic but they’re allowed into the finals as the competition’s organiser, former dancer Xu Shaorong (Li Taiyan), recognises them as students from the school 15 years earlier. Pi Chunpeng, who has a private grudge against Xu Shaorong, takes over as the four girls’ choreographer for the finals. But then Xu Shaorong confronts Li Chunxia with some shocking news.
REVIEW
After failing the leading-man test in (the admittedly meh) crime caper The Human Comedy 人间•喜剧 (2019), Mainland farceur Ai Lun 艾伦, 36, comes up trumps in the far more simpatico Dancing Elephant 跳舞吧！大象, a plea for tolerance wrapped inside a feel-good movie about a fat girl who wants to dance again. Best known as a colourful ensemble player, especially in stage and film productions by Beijing-based theatre company Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花 (Goodbye Mr. Loser 夏洛特烦恼, 2015, etc.), Ai Lun here finds the perfect leading role for his knockabout/camp style, as a somewhat seedy failed dancer who trains the title loser and her three dysfunctional pals for a televised competition. Funded by Mainland companies, and shot in Tianjin with a Mainland cast but mostly Taiwan key crew, this fifth fictional feature by Taiwan director Lin Yuxian 林育贤 has taken only a featherweight RMB39 million at the box office but still counts as Lin’s biggest success yet.
Lin, 45, has had a varied but undistinguished career, with an interest in sporting subjects (his elder brother was a gymnast), youth stories (Exit No. 6 6出口, 2007), melodrama (Sumimasen, Love 对不起，我爱你, 2008; Never Said Goodbye 谎言西西里, 2016) and exhortationary titles with exclamation marks (Jump! Boys 翻滚吧！！ 男孩, 2004; Jump Ashin! 翻滚吧！阿信, 2011). His latest – whose Chinese title literally means “Dance! Elephant” – is pretty much in the same mould, with characters in their late 20s and a story foused on the athletic business of ballet. In one respect it’s a jolly heartwarmer about a group of losers; but in another respect it’s Lin’s most nuanced film yet, centring on five social outsiders, “people beaten down by life” 被生活揍趴下的人, who come together to challenge the status quo – a fattie, a gay male, a struggling single mother, an intellectual dunce and a bipolar “tomboy” [read: lesbian].
The film could easily have been just a goofy comedy running about 90 minutes; but the script by Hangzhou-born writer Chen Shu 陈舒, 37 – producing here for the first time, and best known for her sterling work for director Lu Yang 路阳 (e.g. Brotherhood of Blades 绣春刀, 2014) – takes some extra time to become a real character comedy, with likeable types who develop throughout the film, especially in the second half with its blacker moments. The female lead’s obesity is dealt with in a comic but unvarnished way, paralleled by the frank treatment of the dance teacher’s homosexuality (and the anger of his own father). Of all of Ai Lun’s louche performances, this is his most up-front in terms of sexuality and, while the script never tips over into a gay manifesto or loses its sense of humour, it does occasionally come perilously close in the somewhat over-egged third act.
Starting out as a shabby, straggly-haired sharpster, and only later smartening up his appearance, Ai Lun turns in a nicely judged performance – peppered with pathos – that’s matched by the four female leads, especially newcomer Jin Chunhua 金春花 (from the TV show Top Funny Comedian 欢乐喜剧人) as the fattie-with-a-dream. Of the other three, Peng Yang 彭杨, 31, has the biggest role as the single mother slumming it as a pole dancer, and gets to show off her dance skills; as the dunce and the tomboy, Song Nanxi 宋楠惜, 24, and newcomer Jing Fang 静芳 are okay in more knockabout roles, with the latter carving a stronger profile. Onetime girl-grouper Wang Feifei 王霏霏, 32, who has dance training, is briefly memorable as a superbitch competitor, and executive director Ding Pei 丁培 pops up in a couple of very funny scenes as the dunce’s exasperated schoolmistress.
Most of the crew – d.p., art director, stylist, action director, choreographer, editor and music director – are imported from Taiwan, with the versatile widescreen photography by Wang Junming 王均铭 (youth comedy Twenty 二十岁, 2018) equally good in both the TV production numbers (that dominate the final 20 minutes) and the shabbier scenes of everyday life, all silkily edited by Lin Yongyi 林雍益 (Sweet Alibis 甜蜜杀机, 2014). Visual effects for a cute baby elephant who plays a big role in the fattie’s life are good, but the whole animal (and especially its lachrymose death) could easily be cut completely.
The score shows some care, with wacky orchestral variations on the Dance of the Cygnets from Swan Lake underlining the bond between the four girls, and some upbeat use is made in the dance finale of the 1984 Zhang Guorong 张国荣 [Leslie Cheung] hit song Monica. The film’s catchy title number, belted out by ace songstress Zhou Bichang 周笔畅, is turned into an inspiring song’n’dance montage halfway through.
CREDITS
Presented by UFO Film (Wuyi) (CN), Beijing Culture (CN).
Script: Chen Shu. Photography: Wang Junming. Editing: Lin Yongyi. Music direction: Wang Xiwen. Theme song music: Zheng Nan. Lyrics: Lv Yiqiu. Vocal: Zhou Bichang. Art direction: Liu Zhenghong. Costumes: Lin Peiyi. Styling: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Si Yilin, Li Danfeng. Action: Yang Zhilong. Visual effects: Lin Zhemin. Choreography: Chen Quanhuang. Executive direction: Ding Pei.
Cast: Ai Lun (Pi Chunpeng/Pi Baoshi/Bausch P/P), Jin Chunhua (Li Chunxia), Peng Yang (Liu Qianqian), Song Nanxi (Cheng Xiaoguo), Jing Fang (Bai Tang), Li Taiyan (Xu Shaorong), Jiao Gang (Li Dajun, Li Chunxia’s father), Shi Yue’anxin (Tiantian), Wang Feifei (Ji Shuangshuang), Zhang Zhizhong (Pi Chunpeng’s father), Xiao Chuanxun (young Pi Chunpeng), Li Jingjing (Pang, Pi Chunpeng’s landlady), Zhang Xinzhe (Brother Sky), He Wenchao (Egyptian queen), Dong Runnian (Dong Feng, finals judge), Qiu Endian (Qiu Kaili, head judge), Liu Siwei (Bai Xiao’an, gay finals judge), Wang Hecen (young Li Chunxia), Lv Hanbiao (Fatty), Gu Yuxi (young Cheng Xiaoguo), Lin Kaixin (young Liu Qianqian), Peng Yihang (young Bai Tang), Zhang Wankun (Wu, doctor), Liu Ruize (Xiaofei, computer geek), Li Dong (Biao, gangster), Ding Pei (Cheng Xiaoguo’s teacher), Bao Yiqiao (Liu Qianqian’s mother), Wang Yongqiang (Cheng Xiaoguo’s father), Feng Bo (Cheng Xiaoguo’s mother), Yu Xiao (Doudou, qualifying-round judge), Sun Yuzhe (An Zi, physical trainer), Han Lu (Dandan, stylist), Wang Yajun (Pi Chunpeng’s mother), Han Bing (TV presenter), Hou Xiangbiao (Gu), Wang Chen (Ai Lun’s dance double).
Release: China, 26 Jul 2019.