Lighting Up the Stars

人生大事

China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 106 mins.

Director: Liu Jiangjiang 刘江江.

Rating: 6/10.

Redemptive odd-couple movie, centred on a no-good ex-con and a brattish five-year-old girl, sports a strong cast.

STORY

Yanjiang city, Jiangbei province, central China, May 2021. Five-year-old orphan Wu Xiaowen (Yang Enyou) wakes up one morning and finds her maternal grandmother (Wang Aizhi) dead in bed next to her. The backstreet funeral service Up Sky 上天堂, owned by old Mo (Luo Jingmin) and operated by his no-good son, Mo Sanmei (Zhu Yilong), is summoned and Mo Sanmei tries to revive the grandmother without any luck. Amid all the commotion, Mo Sanmei, who only recently came out of prison after assaulting his ex-girlfriend’s lover, is accused by the wife (Zhou Dan) of Wu Xiaowen’s maternal uncle (Chen Chuang) of stealing the dead woman’s wedding ring. Wu Xiaowen had been abandoned by her mother, Wu Haifei (Li Chun’ai), and in her absence was raised by Wu Haifei’s mother and elder brother. The latter’s wife, who always disliked the arrangement, now demands that Wu Xiaowen is evicted. Still refusing to accept that her beloved grandmother is dead, Wu Xiaowen runs off, dressed in her favourite Nezha costume. As a friend of the kid’s maternal uncle, Mo Sanmei tries to help out by finding her; but there is no love lost between him and the young girl. When Wu Xiaowen’s maternal uncle has to accompany his wife and son on a trip to Beijing, he asks Mo Sanmei to look after the young girl for three days, paying him some money. Wu Xiaowen is a grumpy handful but Mo Sanmei eventually agrees, helped by his kindly neighbour and friend, Wang Jianren (Wang Ge), who runs a wedding business with his live-in lover Yin Baixue (Liu Lu) next door. Mo Sanmei’s father has reluctantly agreed to hand over the family funeral business to him, and next day Mo Sanmei attends the official ceremony, only to find that Wu Xiaowen has badly damaged (and therefore invalidated) the official documents in one of her tantrums. Later, when Wu Xiaowen creates a scene at a crematorium, Mo Sanmei finally gets her to understand that her grandmother is dead and gone up in smoke. Wu Xiaowen continues to be handful but Mo Sanmei manages to cope. Then, after an argument with his father, Mo Sanmei comes to an agreement that he will _buy_ the family house/business from him – for RMB300,000 within 30 days. Wu Xiaowen appears to save the day by introducing Mo Sanmei to Grandpa Liu (Han Wenliang), an old friend of her grandmother who wants to hold his own lavish funeral while he’s still alive, so he can experience it himself. More importantly, he’s willing to pay Mo Sanmei RMB300,000 to personally arrange it.

REVIEW

An unexpected hit this summer, taking a meaty RMB1.7 billion in the Mainland, Lighting Up the Stars 人生大事 is a feel-good tear-jerker that signals its intentions early on, and manufactures a rather obvious twist to provide a finale, but generally gets by thanks to a strong and varied cast. The first substantial big-screen role for 34-year-old actor Zhu Yilong 朱一龙, who’s better known for his TV and web dramas like sci-fi mystery Guardian 镇魂 (2018), it’s produced by several of the same companies behind the 2021 surprise hit Sister 我的姐姐 (2021), with which it shares the theme of a young, self-centred adult forced to look after a brattish kid (with the expected results). In any event, it’s a notable first feature by writer-director Liu Jiangjiang 刘江江, a journalism graduate who went to work at Hebei Radio & TV in 2008 and spent many years working on the daily rural soap This Little Thing in the Village 村里这点事 (2008-17).

Where Sister centred on an ambitious nursing student who, after her parents’ death, is suddenly faced with bringing up a baby brother she hardly knows, Stars features a no-good ex-convict in his 30s who’s thrown together with a friend’s five-year-old niece when said friend has to make a trip with his family to Beijing. The niece had been abandoned by her mother and essentially brought up by her grandmother; when she dies, as she does in the film’s opening, the kid is effectively left without an elder, as her uncle (and especially his wife) have no desire to take on parenting duties of the brat. The young girl is just as moody and manipulative as the young boy in Sister; but in Stars she has a tough nut to crack, as the ex-convict is ruthlessly self-absorbed and works in his father’s undertaking business simply with an eye to taking it over. Despite its social grounding and naturalistic flavour, the film is basically a variation on the odd-couple movie with a redemptive twist: you just know that he will discover a caring side and become a reformed member of society, and the kid will get to love him like a parent she never had.

In a way that’s also surprisingly similar to Sister, the viewer is parachuted into an extended web of family and friends that takes some sorting out – like walking into a crowded room with no introductions. During the first half-hour, a lot of background information is also imparted in the dialogue just when you’re still trying to work out who is who amid the frenetic action, all emphasised by the hand-held, widescreen photography of d.p. Zhao Yuqing 赵昱清 (Fantasia 幻想曲, 2014; How Are You 李梅和韩梅梅 昨日重现, 2017; August Never Ends 八月未央, 2021) that naturalistically evokes backstreet life in fictional, bustling Yanjiang city. (The whole film was shot in Wuhan, central China, during May-Aug 2021.)

The film’s edgy visual style gradually softens as a real relationship starts to develop between the bratty girl and the no-good son, with the hand-held camerawork becoming less noticeable. Throughout, editing by the experienced Zhu Lin 朱琳 (Sister) and her team is mobile. Lead actor Zhu Yilong, a Wuhan native, seems at ease in the environment and its dialect, and the way in which his relations with friends and relatives – a father (Luo Jingmin 罗京民, the cynical old police officer in Love Deposit 爱情银行, 2013 ) who’s ashamed of him, a next-door neighbour (theatre/film actor Wang Ge 王戈) who’s easygoing and helpful – gradually change through small events is a tribute to director Liu’s long-fused script (co-credited to Yu Min 宇敏, an associate producer on Sister) as well as the performers.

Zhu manages the trick of gradually making his character empathetic after starting out as a tiresome loafer with a chip on his shoulder. But chief of all is the chemistry between him and Sichuan-born actress Yang Enyou 杨恩又 that convincingly powers the movie. Seven at the time of shooting, she’s so assured in her various moods – and especially in tomboy get-up as the warrior god Nezha – that she acts like a fully-fledged child star; in fact, it’s her debut in a feature film after limited work on TV and in a couple of shorts. With so much going for it, it’s a double shame that that the movie has a manufactured twist at the 77-minute mark that destroys much of the naturalistic evolution up to that point, pointlessly extending things for a further half-hour. The throwaway ending is, however, almost worth waiting for – a shrug of the shoulders after so many ups and downs.

Creative producer 监制 was Shandong-born film-maker Han Yan 韩延, director of 2020/21 turn-of-the year hit A Little Red Flower 送你一朵小红花 (RMB1.43 billion), as well as the thinly-scripted 3-D VFX-athon Animal World 动物世界 (2018). The script’s original Chinese title was 上天堂 (literally, “Up to Heaven”), the name of the family undertaking business that’s rendered in the film as Up Sky. The film’s final Chinese title means “The Major Events of Life”.

CREDITS

Presented by Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), China Film (CN), Shanghai Film United (Beijing) (CN), Wanda Film Holding (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Beijing Weimeng Internet Technology (CN), Douyin Culture (Xiamen) (CN), Beijing Excuseme Film & TV Culture (CN), Hebei Radio & TV Film Culture (CN), Horgos Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Guava Pictures (CN), Wuhan Starlight & Me Culture Development (CN), Monster House (Beijing) Media (CN), U.Lan Media Xuzhou (CN), Zhejiang Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Beijing Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Horgos Forest Pictures (CN). Produced by Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Zhejiang Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Beijing Zhongxin Film & TV Culture (CN).

Script: Liu Jiangjiang, Yu Min. Photography: Zhao Yuqing. Editing: Zhu Lin, Wei Yong, Gao Qiongjiali. Music: Ji Yuan, Wang Na’na. Art direction: Song Xiaojie. Costumes: Pang Yan. Styling: Tang Ning. Sound: Liu Dayun, Wang Gang, Liu Xiaosha. Action: An Bo. Visual effects: Wang Yongguang, Zhang Kecheng. Executive direction: Xi Jialin.

Cast: Zhu Yilong (Mo Sanmei), Wang Ge (Wang Jianren), Yang Enyou (Wu Xiaowen), Wu Qian (Xixi), Liu Lu (Yin Baixue), Luo Jingmin (Mo Sanmei’s father), Chen Chuang (Wu Xiaowen’s maternal uncle), Xiao’ai (Da Jia), Li Chun’ai (Wu Haifei), Zhou Dan (wife of Wu Xiaowen’s maternal uncle), Zhong Yusheng (Xiaowu, son of Wu Xiaowen’s maternal uncle), Zheng Weili (Mo Sanmei’s elder sister), Liu Yajin (ex-husband of Mo Sanmei’s elder sister), Wu Beitian (Da Pang), Wang Nian (Xiaopang’s mother), Li Kaiyang (Xiaopang), Han Wenliang (Grandpa Liu), Ni Qing (Da Jia’s wife), Chen Yuqi (Da Jia’s daughter), Gong Jinguo (Liu), Wang Aizhi (Wu Xiaowen’s maternal grandmother).

Release: China, 24 Jun 2022.