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Review
by Kozo: |
Wishful male fantasy
is the name of the game in Call For Love. This
Mainland Chinese Lunar New Year Comedy has a decent,
though ultralight premise, and some of the satire
manages to be clever. However, the story's development
is sketchy, the production noticeably sloppy, and
the final lesson trite and rather unearned. Then again,
this is a Lunar Year Comedy, so lazy filmmaking is
excusable as long as everything is funny - and to
be fair, the film does possess a few laughs. Please
note that I said "a few".
Xu Zheng (Crazy Stone)
stars as Xu Lang, a white-collar worker in Beijing
who realizes one evening that he's become completely
disenchanted with his wife (Jiang Hongbo), and suggests
that they divorce. When asked for a reason, he cites
the purple sweater that she wears too often, her love
of television soap operas, and the noodles that she
cooks four times a week. She kicks him out posthaste,
throwing his mobile phone at him for good measure.
Now single and lacking a working mobile, Xu enters
a repair shop where the proprietor (Liu Yiwei of Karmic
Mahjong) proffers a brand new mobile with a decidedly
male-friendly special feature: it allows him to meet
ten different women at the touch of a button, with
each one being his possible dream woman.
Immediately, Xu Lang
puts his new phone to work, leading to many choice
encounters with available females. Among his potential
mates are a beautiful policewoman (Fan Bing-Bing),
a materialistic party girl (Eva Huang), a real estate
speculator (Ning Jing), plus a dog lover (Qu Ying),
a business-minded CEO (Annie Inoh), and a passive-aggressive
career woman (Qin Hailu) who quizzes Xu Lang with
a variety of guilt-inducing psychological tests. Okay,
maybe the encounters are not entirely choice, but
that's the chance Xu takes with his new fantasy plot
device. There are two reasons behind this parade of
possible mates. One, by spending time with various
types of girls, Xu Lang can learn to appreciate each
and every one - as well as his ex-wife - for their
personal idiosyncrasies and individual beauty. And
two, having ten possible girls means plenty of face
time for comely Chinese starlets. Viva commercialism!
Call For Love is obviously a manufactured multiplex filler, so attempting
to qualify it for world cinema status would be fruitless
and probably infuriating. This is cheap, sloppy filmmaking
that doesn't even attempt to earn its nominal narrative
lesson. Continuity gaffes abound; at one point, a
boom mike even appears in frame. Lead actor Xu Zheng
is self-effacing, but also a bit distant, and can't
create a consistent character. He actually manages
to seem sympathetic when he initially dumps his wife,
but his later adventures with other women show no
progression. It would have been better had Xu Lang
changed slowly through meeting each woman, but his
eventual lesson is simply handed to us when the film
is due to end. Does Xu Lang find love? Maybe he does,
but whether or not it comes to matter to the audience
is another story entirely.
However, truly attacking
Call For Love for its lack of killer cinematic
quality is probably too much, as it's just minor fluff
that never pretends to be that deep or telling. Director
Zhang Jianya gives Beijing an attractive urban feel,
and the humor is sometimes amusing in its deadpan
wit. The film does offer a few clever gags, and
some of the relationship issues possess a familiar
exaggerated truth. Though the film doesn't earn its
message, the filmmakers don't slam us over the head
with it either, meaning the big lesson isn't as annoying
as it could be. And, commercialism be damned, it is somewhat entertaining to watch so many attractive
female stars parade through the film. Since the film's
marketing is largely based on the photogenic qualities
of its female cast, the filmmakers seem to have delivered
on at least that superficial promise.
If a major negative could
be levied at Call For Love it's that it's only
mildly funny. The film draws chuckles with its satirical
observations, but they're mostly just that: chuckles.
Other jokes fall flat or seem self-indulgent. Call
For Love is far from a gutbuster, and with that
in mind, it only partially succeeds at being worthwhile.
This is the point where we talk about wasted potential,
and how the filmmakers never capitalize on their concept
to deliver something better than just throwaway fluff.
Well...the above is true, but again, this was always
meant to be fluff, so good job, everybody, you succeeded
at making the cinematic equivalent of a cupcake. Basically,
it's not as good as a rich chocolate decadence cake,
but if you have a sweet tooth, then it'll do in a
pinch. In case the metaphor got lost, here's the skinny:
despite its potential, Call For Love aims low,
and manages to hit its inauspicious commercial target.
As a reward, we shouldn't accuse the filmmakers of
completely wasting our time. (Kozo 2007)
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