On Unpretentious Films

It's the Saint Valentin and I wanted to write about two unpretentious films: Our Times (which I saw on the plane in 2015 on my way to Boston, and I think this was the first romance film where I cried) and Mojin: The Lost Legend (which I saw in the cinema in Beijing in the winter of 2014/5).

Our Times (2015), or 我的少女时代 is a Taiwanese teen romance about Lin Zhengxin, a high schooler in the 90s who is obsessed with Andy Lau and has a crush on the local golden boy. She is forced to become a crony of the school's gang leader Taiyu (played by absolute beau-gosse Wang Ta-lu), who has a crush on the local golden girl. After an initial period of hatred and bullying, the two team up to help each other find love with their respective crushes. Obviously, they become friends and then fall in love. Zhengxin (whose name is literally "of true heart") ends up with Ouyang, and Taiyu with Tao Minmin, but both are unsatisfied and wish they were together. Before they can act upon their feelings, though, spoiler alert, in true Asian-drama fashion, Taiyu finds out he has some kind of brain illness and needs to go to the States to cure it. He doesn't say goodbye. 18 years later, Zhengxin, now a self-loathing workaholic, has a chance meeting with Andy Lau. It turns out Taiyu (who is now played by the guy who played Daoming Si, who still looks like an early-2000s farce) now works for Lau and he manages to get her a ticket to Lau's concert and they reunite. This ending is so cringe and is this close to ruining the whole film, but you can just block it out and pretend the movie ends right before Daoming Si appears.

Mojin: The Lost Legend (2014), or 鬼吹灯之寻龙诀 is a mainland Chinese film based on a popular series of web novels about tomb raiders. It is in fact the second feature-film adaptation of this series, with the first featuring the likes of Li Chen and Yao Chen and looking kinda bad. Mojin, however, which was directed by the Inner Mongolian Wu Ershan and stars a bedraggledly Adonis-like Chen Kun, and Huang Bo, and Shu Qi, is much better. Starting in media res of the series, the famous tomb-raiding trio have given up their trade, but a case related to an old flame, Ding Sitian, who died during the Cultural Revolution, pulls them back in to explore the intricate burial complex of a Mongolian princess. It's an action fantasy adventure, featuring Daoist codebreaking, zombies, and vivid hallucinations. The villains are a woman who looks like a mix between singer Na Ying and President Coin from The Hunger Games, her Japanese assistant who is very Gogo-Yubari-from-Kill-Bill, and a white guy who dies.

I can't say these films are masterpieces of cinematic gesamtkunstwerk. They are not. They have their flaws, mainly cheesiness. But the latter is part of what makes them such thoroughly enjoyable movies, the kind of movies that people don't make anymore these days. They know what they are: a cute teen romance; a fun adventure flick. Their plots are cliché-ridden and predictable –– not so much to be repulsive –– just enough to feel refreshingly unpretentious. (After all, it's almost impossible not to be predictable in an age where pretty much every variation of a story has already been told.) They do not shy away from their nature, nor do they make half-hearted attempts to grapple with topical social commentary (though Mojin's communist flashbacks could be interpreted as ironic and thus political, especially with the Cui Jian song in the credits... but that's subtle. And then again the irony could be more in a nostalgic amused way rather than critical). They don't take on challenges that are too big for their shoes. There are no marvellous flourishes of acting or cinematography -- just a couple hours' escape from reality and some sheer good fun. When a film really wants to be something that it is not, it is often poorly executed and the desperation leaks from its seams. Whereas these films know their place and are content with it. And they thrive. I would highly recommend both of these films. Sorry for spoiling Our Times if you were gonna go see it.