NYAFF 09 Review: IF YOU ARE THE ONE

[Our thanks to Ben Umstead for the following review.]

Fact: Assembly and Banquet director Feng Xiaogang’s new film If You Are The One is a comedy (often humorous) and a romance (quite romantic), though it is overall melancholy in temperament. It stars Ge You and Shu Qi. Oh, and here’s one more tidbit for you… it is the highest grossing movie in China, not of the year, not of the decade but of all time.

A westerner can’t but help mention this if not obsess over it a little. 2008 was a record breaking year for the Chinese box office with Red Cliff coming in a narrow second. So when what is essentially a small and intimate study of two people’s vulnerability tops an action and effects laden spectacle that is cause to sit up and pay attention, cause when a nice chunk of the world’s population prefers this over big booms and such, well that is quite refreshing. Though I must say it is a testament to the Chinese, who are quite film literate, a lesson we in the west could learn from.

Ge stars as Qin, a man in his late forties, an inventor/entrepreneur who, after traveling the globe, has returned to China to settle down and find a wife. The film actually opens with Qin selling his invention, something so out there I cannot spoil it for you, even though you see it in the first five minutes. In his business dealings we get our first glimpse at Qin. He’s straightforward, well traveled, imaginative, but low key. He doesn’t like it when others make a fuss, though he is quite liable to go there too, if not be the out right provoker. Looking like a little boy in his baseball hat and khakis, slugging around a backpack, one would never take him for someone who just made 2 million. In his online advert for a wife he says he doesn’t want any women entrepreneurs. It is a few dates in when Shu shows up as the docile yet commanding, flight attendant Xiaoxiao aka Smiley, that she enquires about this. Qin states firmly he finds women entrepreneurs to be too practical, he wants an emotional woman. So it is here in their first meeting (one they think will be their last) that an instant, natural rapport is established and the film finds its center. Starting like an already worn game of ping-pong, but with wit and whim to spare, Ge and Shu both bring a somber thirst and logical tenacity to their parts while slowly edging out the wry. Both have scars too, yet never do their pasts, their regrets or fears come off in a melodramatic, overzealous nature. Shu’s Smiley is in love with a married man, and sees Qin as a friend, someone she can confide in, someone she can even use. Qin accepts this, even prefers this, yet they keep coming back to each other…

While there are segments of the film that play up the absurd more than others, these are intervals between Qin and Smiley’s encounters. It is as if Feng is trying to paint a picture in which he is saying how silly it is that these two people are staying apart. And though I do say absurd, they are never erroneously outrageous, never “American”. Though I’m sure some of the humor was lost on me due to Mandarin intonation or subtlety I just didn’t pick up on. Yes the secret is out I'm not a native speaker...

The whole film takes it time to breath, being very episodic, circling around Qin and Smiley’s meetings, until the final leg in which they travel to Hokkaido to resolve said past scars. In many ways If You Are The One is quite formal in behavior, sometimes to the point where women are clearly subservient or reliant on men. It presents nothing exceptional, while never being too conventional either. Feng gives us a worthwhile distraction with sad heart to spare and two fine lead performances at its core.

Review by Ben Umstead

"If You Are The One" screens as part of the New York Asian Film Festival at the IFC Center, Wednesday July 1st, 9:30 PM