PERFECT BRIDE review

The phrase 'mainland Chinese romantic comedy' isn't exactly a guarantee of quality of late, many of them sporting enough product placement, cheap and cheerful production values and scantily-clad eye candy to make Wong Jing sit up and take notice. What's different about [i]Perfect Bride[/i]? Check the review after the break.

[i]([b]Please note![/b] To the best of my knowledge this film is [b]not[/b] commercially available with English subtitles. The DVD I watched did not possess them and I have found no online retailer selling a legitimate copy which does – I used fan-made softsubtitles in writing this review and cannot vouch for their accuracy. I am [b]not[/b] familiar with the language – I apologise in advance for any errors I have made or anything I've glossed over as a result. Feel free to correct me in the comments should you know any different!)[/i]

It's the poster. It seems to promise something at least a [b]little[/b] different to the [i]Call For Love[/i]s and [i]Fit Lover[/i]s the Chinese domestic film industry has been rolling off the production line in recent years. Naïve, maybe, but if a studio are selling their movie on an apprehensive young woman in a wedding dress toting a katana, her picture surrounded by a freakish-looking chorus of supporting cast members grimacing for the camera, surely there must be something to be got out of watching it.

The premise is as predictable as they come, with quirky, shy saleswoman Du Leisi (Guo Ke-Yu) about to turn thirty and desperate to land a husband before she's consigned to lonely spinsterhood. The look is dolled-up kitsch; saturated colours; upbeat, over-stuffed production design; beads, fairy lights and thrift store knick-knacks in every corner of the frame; filters, freeze-frames and subtitles at every opportunity. Oddly enough this incongruous mash-up of genre influences makes the movie more appealing in one sense – yes, this really [b]is[/b] [i]Bridget Jones[/i] by way of [i]Survive Style 5+[/i], even if the budget leans more towards Claire's Accessories than Gen Sekiguchi's endless invention.

There isn't much to the plot [i]per se[/i]. The story picks up in the middle of nowhere in particular – here is Du; she's almost thirty and still single; watch her struggle earnestly to find Mister Right while comic misunderstandings mean she trips up at every turn. The most likely candidate seems to be sneering lothario Prince, but he's determined to have nothing to do with her, and the continued efforts of Du's best friend Snow to set her up with some other eligible bachelor don't seem much more likely to pay off. The film culminates with Prince arranging for Du to appear as a contestant on a television game show, competing to prove herself the perfect bride – Prince hoping Du will humiliate herself in the process, but things not turning out quite the way he'd expected.

It reads like utterly mindless fluff on paper, and could so easily have been, but [i]Perfect Bride[/i] is a little more than just another identikit romcom with the heroine picking a prospective mate from a harem of vapid, preening models and it's not the pointless Hollywood knockoff it might appear. If [i]Perfect Bride[/i] was played largely with a straight face it'd blow away on the wind, but as light-hearted nonsense it actually manages to leave something of an impression. It's not clever enough to be a screwball comedy – the writing doesn't really seem to be trying for sharp or witty – but there's a breezy, earnest tone to everything, a slapdash eagerness to please that's genuinely endearing and a sense no-one involved is ever taking things [b]too[/b] seriously.

Guo Ke-Yu made her film debut starring in the harrowing World War II drama [i]Red Cherry[/i] when she was a teenager, and her presence and obvious acting ability still filter through even with such wildly different subject matter. She's far from conventionally attractive, even with the predictable outsize glasses, unflattering haircut and shapeless clothes that come with the role, and the film doesn't attempt to hide this. For all the mugging, all the facial tics and mannerisms, she makes Du Leisi much more a person than a superstar trying to convince 'average' women she knows [b]just[/b] how they feel. The supporting cast are much the same – cartoons, but with just enough in the way of warmth, self-awareness or humanity they feel likeable, even believable. Like the better class of sitcom [i]Perfect Bride[/i] is obviously a fantasy, but grounded enough to help all but the most cynical viewers suspend their disbelief.

Visually it may not be as carefully calculated as [i]Survive Style 5+[/i], but its scattershot approach largely pays off. There's always something to catch the viewer's eye, amuse or entertain, intentionally or otherwise, from the storybook opening titles to the backdrops (and a round of applause for a nightclub that [b]doesn't[/b] look like a homage to [i]Basic Instinct[/i]) and even a scene that lifts wholesale from Pixar's [i]Ratatouille[/i] for no apparent reason. Everything feels like a legitimate (or at least interesting) artistic choice, for all the film is constantly in danger of veering off the rails entirely, and in an oddball way [i]Perfect Bride[/i] does express dynamics, range and subtlety, like a slightly more restrained mainland take on [url=https://screenanarchy.com/site/view/tiff-report-bangkok-loco-review/][i]Bangkok Loco[/i][/url]. It's not quite up to that level of inspired lunacy, but it's far more Wisit Sasanatieng ([url=https://screenanarchy.com/site/view/tiff-report-citizen-dog-review/][i]Citizen Dog[/i][/url], [i]Tears of the Black Tiger[/i]) than Robin Lee ([i]The Shoe Fairy[/i]).

It's unlikely to win over anyone who hates the form outright but it's difficult to dislike something that obviously means so well. There's little here that feels especially fresh or original – this is still a daft romantic comedy through and through, with a vague message along the lines of 'Being yourself will see everything come out all right in the end' – but it's popcorn entertainment and well aware of it, constantly playing with its own limitations, firing off ideas in all directions, barely waiting to see if one hit the mark before loading the next. For anyone wanting to sample the lighter side of mainland commercial cinema, something that stands out from the crowd, if they can take the rough with the smooth or the relentlessly quirky with the quietly memorable, [i]Perfect Bride[/i] comes recommended.