Better Days: Bullying in China

It was a big hit in China, but its theatrical release was mysteriously delayed by the increasingly censorious and censoring state film authorities. Outsiders were baffled what led the Party to also pull the film from international film festivals, but we might hazard a few guesses. For one thing, the punky Xiao Bei is keenly aware of the surveillance cameras posted throughout the city. Perhaps more fundamentally, the Chongqing police always side with the privileged, no matter how viciously their entitled teenagers bully the children of the less fortunate. The students of Hong Kong can definitely relate. However, one smart but socially disadvantaged girl finds an unlikely guardian angel in HK filmmaker Derek Tsang’s Chinese-production, Better Days, which releases today on BluRay.

China’s “gaokao” national university entrance exam is fast approaching, but one of Chen Nian’s classmates will not be sitting for it after all, because she just killed herself. It wasn’t the academic pressure. It was the bullying from Wei Lai and her clique. Unfortunately, Chen becomes their next target, after she covers the face of their dead classmate, to prevent even more social media posts.

Chen Nian is one of the smartest in the class, but she rarely sees her mother, who is constantly on the run, from creditors and unhappy customers for her dodgy, distribution-marketed cosmetics. She really has no support system, until Xiao takes it upon himself to protect her (after she tries to interrupt a group of thugs who jumped him). He initially intimidates Wei, but when she returns to her old ways, he escalates the violence—perhaps fatally. Or not. Just what happened on that fatal night is a secret screenwriters Lam Wing Sum, Li Yuan, & Xu Yimeng will tease out over the third act.

Better Days is in fact a film brimming with social conscience and moral outrage. None of its bite is softened by the ludicrous tacked-on epilogue, wherein lead actor Jackson Yee reads off a laundry list of recent government initiatives to fight bullying. That many programs proves the government really doesn’t care, because if Xi-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed Jinping really wanted to stop bullying, he would just tell his underlings to have it stopped.

The Thousand Faces of Dunjia: Cosmic Wuxia from the Pen of Tsui Hark

The power of Dunjia, whatever that is, trumps “The Force” every time. That is why the secret Wuyinmen clan needs it. Like a cross between the Men in Black and The Four, the Wuyinmen have sworn to defend their wuxia world from evil alien monsters, but their strength has been depleted. Ironically, they might get a mojo infusion from an unlikely source when signs indicate a shapeshifting monster is destined to be their new leader in Yuen Woo-ping’s The Thousand Faces of Dunjia (trailer here), written and produced by Tsui Hark, which opens this Friday in New York.

Rookie constable Dao Yichang is honest, but not very bright. That is two strikes against him, but he keeps plugging away. Several times, he stumbles across Iron Dragonfly of the Wuyinmen Clan as she pursues monsters in human guise, but she gives him the MIB forgetfulness treatment before he can ask too many questions. Still, she kinds of likes the lug, so when he is seriously injured in an unearthly melee, she tends to his decapitated limbs (don’t worry, they’ll grow back eventually).

Thus far, Xiao Yuan has yet to bring out similarly nurturing instincts in her. Due to prophesy mumbo jumbo, the clan’s “big brother” and her ambiguously Tracy-and-Hepburn-esque comrade Zhuge Qingyun are convinced she is destined to be the next Wuyinmen leader, but Iron Dragonfly is skeptical. Regardless, they need to find a way to tap into the power of Dunjia to defeat the underworld demigods and space monsters conspiring against the human world.

In some ways, Thousand Faces could be considered the ultimate Tsui Hark film, because he gives absolute free reign to his cosmic flights of fantasy. It makes his Journey to the West franchise look gritty and grounded. Consider the climatic “hand of Buddha” scene from Conquering the Demons as its starting baseline. If you can explain just what Dunjia is, you’re way ahead of the game. Near as we can tell, it combines elements of yin & yang, Qi, the Force, and a double espresso.

Regardless, there is plenty of fighting to be done, often against Earth-shattering foes. Fortunately, that plays to the strengths of Yuen, the fight choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Matrix trilogy, as well as the director of Netflix’s Crouching Tiger sequel. He has a talent for coordinating gravity-defying moves and colossal set pieces, even if they don’t always make a lot of sense, strictly speaking.

Aarif Lee probably gives his most assured performance yet as the resilient Constable Dao. Wu Bai is massively steely and cool looking as the interim Wuyinmen boss, while Zhou Dongyu is ridiculously sweet and vulnerable as Xiao Yuan in human form. However, Ni Ni totally owns the film as the heroic but acid-tongued Iron Dragonfly. Few wuxia protagonists can match her cutting attitude.

Obviously, Thousand Faces was conceived as a franchise, because the final scene totally sets up the next film. Frankly, it is funnier than most Marvel stingers, so it should leave fans primed for more. In fact, by the time we reach the epilogue, we come to rather like this unruly band of near-superheroes. Recommended for fans of high-flying, fantastical wuxia action, The Thousand Faces of Dunjia opens this Friday (12/15) in New York, at the AMC Loews 34^th Street.

This is not What I Expected: Chinese Culinary Romance

It must be an olfactory thing. Gu Shengnan and Lu Jin can’t stand each other unless she is cooking for him. She is a sous-chef and he is a hotel tycoon, so they both know food. They just don’t know they’re in love yet, but her dog Boss, an adorable English Bull Terrier, knows it just as well as we do. Somehow all that cooking pays off in Derek Hui’s This is not What I Expected (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Lu Jin has checked into room 1123 of his latest Shanghai acquisition—and if the kitchen staff does not impress him with something before he checks out at noon, the entire hotel is in trouble. Bafflingly, Gu’s boss (and the ex who just dumped her) waits till the very last minute to ask her to take a shot, but her flair for flavor and aroma saves the day. Soon she is constantly creating dishes to meet room 1123’s challenges.

Much to her embarrassment, Gu realizes Lu Jin is the same rich jerk she previously met under rather disadvantageous circumstances, so she will go to great lengths to avoid a face-to-face meeting. Yet, fate keeps conspiring to bring them together. After years of eating alone, is Lu Jin finally really for ramen for two? If you doubt it, go ask Boss.

Frankly, TINWIE might be the most misnamed film of the year. It is pretty much exactly what we expected, but Hui sure knows how to stage some culinary indulgences. In fact, the cooking scenes are executed with such colorful visual panache, they pull us through the predictable storyline. Plus, Boss certainly holds up his end as well.

The food and the dog up-stage everyone (basically, W.C. Fields was right, he just didn’t take it far enough), but Zhou Dongyu (still red hot popular in China for the local smash SoulMates) is ridiculously cute (and only slightly cloying) as the plucky, brow-furrowing Gu. On the other hand, Takeshi Kaneshiro’s Lu Jin is such a cold jerkheel, it is hard to believe he never gets a Wüsthof through the heart from someone on the exhausted kitchen staff. However, Lin Chi-ling adds some heat as Gu’s third act culinary adversary and perhaps romantic rival as well—in fact, the film suggests they are basically one and the same.

The battery of screenwriters hit every predictable note, at least once, but Hui and art director Ben Luk Man-ah make it all look fresh and frothy. Somehow, it doesn’t feel as slapsticky as it would sound if you broke it down scene-by-scene, thanks in large measure to Zhou’s soulful pluckiness. If you have to go to a “date movie” this weekend, TINWIE is hands down the most stylish choice available. Recommended accordingly, This is not What I Expected opens today (5/5) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

SoulMates: A Tale of Friendship and Internet Publishing

Web novels never really caught on here, but they are a big deal in China and Japan. There was a brief vogue for serialized e-books, but generally American readers want to hold the entire book in their hands (you take my word for it when it comes to e-book marketing). In contrast, readers in other markets seem to appreciate way web novels unfold without any guarantees—sort of like life. That is especially true of the hot new web-novel written by Li Ansheng (Anson)’s former BFF Lin Qiyue (July), transparently based on their lives. Li could really do without the resulting attention in Derek Tsang’s SoulMates (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Li was always the wild one and Lin was the responsible one, but somewhere along the way to their late twenties, they apparently switched. Now Li has a responsible office job and Lin is presumably in the wind, living the bohemian life she used to read about in Li’s postcards. They were inseparable through middle school or whatever it is called in China (it came with uniforms and military drills that neither were into). They were still closer than sisters in high school, but that is when the first fissure in their relationship occurred. His name is Su Jia-ming and he becomes a greater issue over time. Lin is crazy about him and it is mostly mutual, but he cannot help feeling attractive to her rebellious yet protective pal Li.

For a while they have sort of the reciprocal of Jules and Jim going on, but misunderstandings and distance will strain their friendships. Sadly, the few times the two women come together, it seems to drive them further apart. Of course, viewers will expect some dramatic revelations in the third act—and Li and Lin do not disappoint.

This could be derisively called a “chick flick” but the missing web novelist and her anticipated final chapter give it an intriguing air of mystery. As Macguffins go, it isn’t “Rosebud,” but it isn’t bad. In fact, SoulMate has a meta dimension that elevates the film well beyond standard tearjerkers.

Fortunately, Zhou Dongyu and Ma Sichun both bring their A games, convincingly suggesting the depth and tension of their relationship. There is a lot of integrity to their performances. These characters know exactly what to say to hurt each other and it makes us wince in sympathetic pain when they inevitably do. Of course, the camera absolutely loves them, which does not hurt either.

Somewhat surprisingly for such a contemporary urban drama set in the world’s most populous country, hardly any other supporting player gets any appreciable screen business aside from blandly handsome Toby Lee as the largely clueless Su. He is serviceable enough, but as the song says, you don’t want to be the mister who gets between these mega-watt movie star sisters.

There is no question Tsang (son of HK show biz institution Eric Tsang) is going for the heartstrings, but, believe it or not, he manages to surprise us at several junctures, with the assistance of a platoon of screenwriters (Lam Wing Sum, Li Yuan, Xu Yi-meng, and Wu Nan adapting Qing Shan’s novel). If Beaches wasn’t weepy enough for you than SoulMate is in your power zone. Recommended for fans of Chinese melodrama, SoulMate opens this Friday (9/23) in New York, at the AMC Empire.