Reviews: Movie

Happy Birthday

Directed by Jingle Ma, starring Rene Liu, Louis Koo

Given the demographics of China's movie-going public, romantic comedy should be plucking millions of heartstrings. But strangely, no, it is a genre that falls on its face for almost every endeavor. This is the latest victim.

Based on a story by Rene Liu, it is about an urban couple, which drifts in and out of a relationship in a mismatched flurry of overseas trips and underspoken vows. The magic spell of cohesion is the use of cellphone short messaging, which the characters use to send Happy Birthday greetings. Balancing love and career may be on the agenda of many of today's young people, but to make it into a cat-and-mouse game as in this movie has become just a dating game with no dramatic arc.

As if acutely aware how fluffy the plot is, the filmmakers add the de rigueur tragic death as a melodramatic tack-on. Maybe they were genuinely moved by their own story, but it is a leap of faith that audience will follow suit.

RZ

(China Daily 02/14/2007 page20)