I Remember
明天你是否依然爱我
China/Hong Kong, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.
Director: Zhou Nan 周楠.
Rating: 6/10.
Fluffy, odd-couple rom-com, set in Finland, is entirely sustained by the charm of its two leads.
STORY
Beijing, Nov 2018. Fei Li (Li Hongqi) is a geeky-looking IT employee at the company Toolman; almost invisible to the rest of the staff, he’s treated like a general dogsbody. On her first day at work in the marketing department, Zhao Ximan (Yang Ying) asks him to fix her computer and actually remembers his name. Fei Li falls head-over-heels for her, and over the next 13 months observes all her habits in fine detail: she’s conscientious, turns up early for work, is popular with her colleagues, likes listening to CDs, and – much to his disappointment – is romanced by the company’s director, Dou Peng (Wang Baijun). In Dec 2019 a group of employees, including Zhao Ximan and Fei Li, is flown to Germany for a business expo in Frankfurt, where Fei Li has the humiliating job of dressing up and parading outside. When the expo finishes, Dou Peng surprises everyone with a free five-day holiday to Finland. Zhao Ximan, who has always dreamed of seeing the Northern Lights, is delighted and prepares a detailed sightseeing plan. Unfortunately, the group doesn’t leave Helsinki, where it’s rare to see the phenomenon, and Dou Peng has also brought along his wife (Wang Jiajia) and child. Fed up, Zhao Ximan decides to stay on for a couple of days to go north to Lapland to see the Northern Lights. On the day the group leaves for home, she disappears; Fei Li stays on and organises a search for her, after finding her plan torn up on the ski slopes. She’s found unconscious and is taken to hospital; she has no injuries but when she wakes up she has short-term amnesia, thinking it’s 2016 and not remembering anything about the company, Fei Li, or coming to Finland. Though he has a hard time proving it to her, Fei Li claims he’s been her boyfriend for the past 18 months. Initially confused and grumpy, and still not fully believing him, she eventually agrees to continue her sightseeing plan with him, and the two take a train north to the Arctic Circle.
REVIEW
The combined charm of Shanghai-born actress-model Yang Ying 杨颖 [Angelababy] and Taiwan actor Li Hongqi 李鸿其 singlehandedly motors fluffy odd-couple rom-com I Remember 明天你是否依然爱我, in which he pretends to be her boyfriend when she loses her memory during a short break in Finland. The second theatrical feature of Zhou Nan 周楠, 38, an Inner Mongolia-born film-maker who’s also made copious shorts and online movies, it’s a far slicker work than his bumpy debut, the Valentine’s Day rom-com Somebody to Love 我们约会吧 (2011), and makes full use of the Helsinki and Lapland locations that make up 90% of the film. Hardly original, but not pretending to be anything but throwaway entertainment, it took an equally throwaway RMB69 million over the turn-of-the-year period, underlining the fact that neither Yang nor Li is a box-office draw per se.
The sprightly script, by Zhou Yunhai 周运海 (Goldbuster 妖铃铃, 2017; Coffee or Tea?, 2020) and Wang Feifei 王菲菲, rapidly establishes the two main characters – he’s an IT nerd whom nobody notices, she’s the office newcomer who actually smiles at him – before shipping them off with the rest of the staff to a business expo in Frankfurt and then a company freebie in Finland. She dreams of seeing the Northern Lights and he dreams of showing them to her; but after their colleagues have returned to Beijing she wakes up after an accident with short-term memory loss. With no memory of the past four years, including who he is or why she’s in Finland, he bluffs her that he’s her boyfriend. Wary, but keen to see the Northern Lights, she agrees to go with him to the Arctic Circle. That’s the first half hour.
It’s all as clean as a whistle and as light as a feather. Mainland cinema has hardly been short of Euro-set rom-coms the past 10 years, and I Remember follows the template to a tee, with lots of snow, reindeer and Santa Clauses, montages of the pair fooling around like tourists, and dreamy moments like watching the Northern Lights. Widescreen photography by Finnish d.p. Mika Orasmaa (Iron Sky, 2012; Big Game, 2014) is pristine and consistently attractive, and the score by his compatriot Tuomas Kantelinen (Euro-set caper movie The Adventurers 侠盗联盟, 2017) is equally adept in extrovert and quieter moments. Thanks to the leads’ chemistry, Orasmaa’s camerawork and Kantelinen’s music, the final 20 minutes is actually quite touching, building on a scene halfway through in which the nerd poetically declares his love for the still-suspicious beauty.
Yang, 31, has always been at her best in this kind of frothy nonsense (Love You You 夏日乐悠悠, 2011; Love O2O 微微一笑很倾城, 2016) and here, in her first leading role in four years, is ideally cast. The chameleon Li, 30, almost unrecognisable behind geeky glasses, a nerdy grin and kitchen-mop hair, slips into the generic role with ease; he seems to get better and better with each recent film (Love You Forever 我在时间尽头等你, 2020; Back to the Wharf 风平浪静, 2020), though Yang handles her English dialogue better.
The film’s Chinese title means “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and is one used by several Chinese songs.
CREDITS
Presented by Gravity Pictures Film Production (CN), CMC Pictures Holdings Hong Kong (HK), Amazing Box Pictures (Ningbo) (CN), Shanghai CMC Pictures (CN), Shanghai Gravity Pictures Film Production (CN). Produced by Shanghai CMC Pictures (CN), Amazing Box Pictures (Ningbo) (CN).
Script: Zhou Yunhai, Wang Feifei. Photography: Mika Orasmaa. Editing: Huang Yidan, Gu Xiaoyun. Music: Tuomas Kantelinen. Art direction: Lu Wei (overall), Otso Linnalaakso (Finland). Costume design: Hong Meiling. Styling: Xu Liwen. Sound: Zhang Jian, Wu Miao, Gao Hailun. Action: Reijo “Reka” Kontio. Visual effects: Lao A. Executive direction: Tian Xiaowen.
Cast: Yang Ying [Angelababy] (Zhao Ximan), Li Hongqi (Fei Li), Huang Baijun [Denny Huang] (Dou Peng), Wang Jiajia (Yuan Xiaoyun, Dou Peng’s wife), Li Siheng (Zheng Wei), Liu Weisen (Li Kuai, Fei Li’s department head), Sun Jia (Chen Ke), Kari Väänänen (hospital doctor).
Release: China, 24 Dec 2020; Hong Kong, tba.