Finding Mr. Right is about finding love when you are not
exactly looking for it, which makes the title a bit of a misnomer. Tang Wei, infamous
in China for her sex scene in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution that got her banned from
Chinese films for a number of years, stars as Jiajia an expecting mother who
travels to the US from China to give birth to a child whose father is married
to another woman. The idea of a woman being shamed to leave he country to give birth could make a great film, but alas Finding proved to be nothing more than a
conventional romcom something it appeared desperate to prove. Jiajia travels to Seattle because she likes the film
Sleepless in Seattle. We soon find out that she is spoiled, entitled and
obnoxious, immediately clashing with her costar Wu Xiubo who plays Frank, the
too-nice nice guy who drives around pregnant Chinese women who have come to
America to give birth. Over the course of nine months Tang Wei’s character
slowly sheds her childish behavior, selfishness and naiveté. As she learns to
become less dependent on money and it’s luxuries she also grows closer to
Frank, who is himself going through divorce and custody battles with a woman
obsessed with money and career advancement.
Finding leans on cultural differences
for comedic effect. Arriving in Seattle Jiajia has to mime her way through
customs. She doesn’t understand life in America, but to the filmmaker’s credit the foreign land is not presented as some dystopia where she is alienated and all alone.
She is able to get by even if the film has an improbable amount of Mandarin
speakers. The fact that the film took place in the present day and that it acknowledged
that social problems exist (which is not to say that there was a sharp critique
of these problems) were things that I could appreciate. The film deals with the
growing perception of wealth as the most important thing in modern Chinese
culture. Jiajia tries to solve every problem with money earning her the ire of
her fellow expatriates. Those fellow expatriates are also women who went to America
because Chinese society wouldn’t have them giving birth in China. In Jiajia’s case
she is the mistress of the never seen Mr. Zhong, the unfaithful businessman who
blinded by money and women neglects his family. He also neglects Jiajia and
soon she and Frank become each other’s solace. Frank is there for Jiajia when
her child is born and she is there for Frank when he has to go to his ex-wife’s
wedding. Together they begin to craft a life together just when Mr. Zhong
returns to the picture, in voice only, summoning Jiajia back to China.
The acting is standard romcom fare, save a few of the
Westerners who were clearly cast on a budget. The film looks good and contains
some great footage of Seattle in particular. There is a montage at the end of
the film that too blatantly shows us the
passage of time. The film contains a few other time jumps that are a bit
jarring, like the jump from Jiajia’s settling in period in the autumn to Christmas. Of course
those are small potatoes compared to the ridiculous and poorly setup reunion of
Frank and Jiajia at the end of the film; a cookie cutter ending too coincidental
to take seriously. From the onset of the film it was clear that the two
characters we were introduced to would end up together, but there were other
routes to deliver the same package. Clearly the director is a fan of American
romcoms, notably Sleepless in Seattle. Like Sleepless in Seattle, Finding fits
in its time, allowing its characters to find love in a modern world and because
of modern circumstances. Unfortunately Finding is twenty years later than
Sleepless and is seemingly happy with itself so long as it manages to make you
think of Rob Reiner’s film.
I saw the trailer for the Chef, the Actor and the Scoundrel
months before the film came out. In the interim I became a fan of Huang Bo, a
Chinese comedic actor who recently shot to even greater fame in China after the
absurd success of his film Lost in Thailand. Huang Bo is a natural comedian; to
look at him is to experience something tragic and human but also something
funny. He was the main highlight of Lost in Thailand, a film that was a PG-13
version of the Hangover II. There was, however, nothing Huang Bo could do to
save this latest film from being a travesty.
The trailer for the film showcases all of the action
sequences of the film but none of the plot. From the trailer I guessed the
story was some kind of strange love affair, it looked like Amelie mixed with
the Wild Wild West. Two minutes into the film, however, it was obvious that it
was neither of those films. Twenty minutes into the film the story comes into
focus: the actual plot was revealed to be about the Japanese. Like Nazis in
American films, Japanese are the go-to bad guys in Chinese films and not
without reason. That being said I felt deceived. The Chef appeared to be a film
that was going to be different than the other Chinese films I had seen this
year. Instead it was the same basic plot: a couple brave patriots work behind
the scenes to wrestle secrets from the hands of the Japanese in order to save
the country. I’m not criticizing the storyline, I just wonder how often the
same one can be used.
Huang Bo has a couple scenes that are funny. It was disappointing
to learn that his production company had a hand in the film. I’m not sure what
he saw in the project. Lost in Thailand may have been just another silly
comedy, but at least it did a good job of showcasing Huang Bo’s comedic acting.
The Chef spends too much time delivering an overly complicated story about a
chef, an actor and a scoundrel who are all playing their parts simply to lure
the Japanese into making a mistake. The later portion of the film can’t
maintain the small spark of interest the first fifteen minutes of the film
generated. The result is the same story rehashed with brighter colors and all
the usual tropes. The effect is dizzying but for all the wrong reasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment