The films of Ning Hao, a director venerated by the young Chinese public thanks to his almost demented comedy which mirrors the frenetic spirit of modern Chinese society, have changed pace with his two most recent outings: One Man’s Land and Breakup Buddies. He has ventured into the field of drama, even if a comic vein runs through it. Both road-movies, somewhat more sophisticated technically and narratively speaking, the director no longer relies on the comic body language of his favourite actors – Huang Bo e Xu Zheng in primis – but he explores the psychology of the characters.
That Breakup Buddies is a “cutting” film – in all senses of the word – can be understood from the opening credits: they appear on various objects that are sliced in two. The person doing the cutting is none other than the main character of the film, Geng Hao; in the opening scene of the film, the lawyer taken on by his wife, Kang Xiaoyu, presents him with divorce papers. Furious, Geng Hao rushes to Xiaoyu’s lover’s house, intent on killing him, but his peaceable indolence stops him; he ends up drowning his sorrows in alcohol, and after a solemn session of hard drinking, he is almost kidnapped by his best friend. In order to distract him from his woes, he decides to drag him along on a long car journey to southern China. The two are as different as chalk and cheese: Geng Hao is a musician who gave up playing for a quiet life, but who is dejected, lacks self-worth, feels he is a coward. His friend Hao Yi is of a sunny disposition, but somewhat cynical and arrogant, his mantra is “focus on the solution, not on the problem”. He is also an incorrigible Don Juan, obsessed by sex and convinced that a love-life should consist of nothing more than a series of one-night stands. He works as a set designer, and the trip he drags his friend on is to deliver props for a costume drama being made in Dali, in Yunnan. But the stops on their journey across this suggestive scenery are based on sexual encounters arranged by Hao Yi with various types of girls: one is disguised as an avatar, another is a cosplayer, another is a lesbian, there are various prostitutes. A range of types, they all have dreams, disappointments and existential crises in common.
In the meantime, we see flashbacks of a young, sensitive, intelligent woman, who wants to defend her right to remain single, deciding to take refuge in Dali. Here she comes into contact with the hippy commune which, in recent years, has established itself in the magical atmosphere of Yunnan’s old villages. It is testimony to how much respect Ning Hao’s name carries that the Chinese censors did not cut scenes in which various secondary characters are seen smoking marijuana.
The story unfolds with the men’s misadventures en route, and we eventually find out the identity of the woman; the finale is a happy one, in the tradition of classic comedy. The fact remains that the most important aspect of this road-movie is the discovery of the labyrinth of relationships in modern-day China, rather than the destination of the actual trip. The commercial success of the film, which took more than a billion RMB at the box office, confirms how Ning Hao knows how to ride the wave of the collective imagination of the Chinese public.
Maria Barbieri