"The country mouse meets the city mouse" in this "commedia alla shanghaiana", a film as joyful and socially conscious as Italy's best satires of the '60s boom. Jiang Wu (Mainland megastar Jiang Wen's younger brother) plays Zhang Baogen, winner of a contest in which the grand prize is a two-room apartment; when he arrives in Shanghai, however, he discovers he has to wait a year and a half for the high-rise flat to be built. In the meantime, he's helped, and also exploited, by his hyper-energetic young aunt (alluringly played by Tao Hong), a naive loser who wears the mask of success. Their interplay - he's rushing up the ladder, she's falling down - takes on a more and more philosophical and romantic flavour. The whole tale is ironically narrated in the musical style of "Suzhou pingtan", a traditional and rapidly fading southern Chinese story-telling method, contrasted with songs by popular Taiwanese rock star Wu Pai, who plays a street singer-guitarist.
Shi Runjiu, a first-time feature director known for his underground music videos, draws a multilayered portrait of urban life, and the brash new face of modern Shanghai is lusciously lit by Lü Yue, Zhang Yimou's favourite cameraman. Imar Film's second movie, following Spicy Love Soup, this is a very successful attempt to address a wide audience without adding too much sugar into the bitter tea
Lorenzo Codelli