Date of first release in the territory: 8 November 2011
How long do you need to recover from love setbacks? According to the movie of the year, 33 days are sufficient …at least for Huang Xiaoxian, a young employee of a wedding agency. She incidentally discovers that her boyfriend (with whom she has a seven-year affair) is unfaithful to her with her best friend; the movie tells the chronicle of her pain and her gradual “healing”. Along this path, many characters surround Xiaoxian: her former boyfriend, her former friend, the manager of the wedding agency who tries to help her with a paternalistic but sympathetic attitude, the irrational customers of the agency and her male colleague having an indefinable sexuality who helps her to recover peace and self-confidence. The movie was adapted from a popular novel published on the internet by Bao Jingjing, who also wrote the script. It was then adapted for TV in a 150 min. version by Teng Huatao itself, being a very famous director among TV audience thanks to the very successful serials he directed. The movie was compared to Bridget Jones Diary not only because the story is organized as it were a diary, but also because the leading character –as his western counterpart– is a sentimental but really modern girl. Xiaoxian is a symbol of the generation of independent and learned young women who challenge the traditional way of thinking according to which the unmarried woman at the age of 27 years is hopeless. The number of movies based on this category of women and addressed to the relevant demographic range of the audience is increasingly larger. However, despite the apparently romantic end – which anyway has a certain dose of ambiguity– the distributors of the movie decided to release the movie on the same day of the new but non-official public holiday, the “super-single day”(11.11.11) when men and women meet to celebrate the status of “single”. The success of the movie (which cost 9 million RMB and earned 350 million RMB at the box office) can be ascribed to the correct balance between feelings and humor, the charm of characters, the plainness and directness of dialogues and the alchemy between the two leading characters, Wen Zhang and Bai Baihe, whose rivalry relationship becomes a friendship rather than the usual love story. There are many cameos in the movie among which the real partners of the two: Ma Yili, Wen Zhang’s wife, and Chen Yufan, Bai Baihe’s husband. Despite the pretty deceitful setting, the Beijing of the yuppies, and the abundant use of the voiceover, special effects and double exposures which all create a magic and childish atmosphere, the movie is able to avoid the marketing appearance which can be found in many recent film productions of the same genre and on the contrary it remains stuck to the simple emotional reality of characters. The dichotomy between unselfish love and material success –a recurrent theme in many sentimental comedies of the year– appears less falsely romantic than in other movies of the same genre and in this way it acquires some credibility. Thanks to this movie, Teng Huatao proved to be a versatile director and perfectly attuned to the taste of Chinese audience.
Maria Barbieri