The Chinese Dream (the equivalent of the American Dream) seems to entail moving from the country to the urban centers and making a life there. For the scores of Chinese people who follow this direction, however, things are not always rosy and life in the big cities can easily turn into something much worse than they expected. Liu Yulin's second feature focuses on a number of characters that face similar issues in the megalopolis, as their lives are eventually interconnected.
“In Our Prime” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
Yitian delivers weather and traffic information on the radio. She is also a single mom raising her son in the big city, although she prides herself for having managed to move from the town she was born in. Her life, however, is complicated on a number of levels. Ma Huai, her ex-husband has remarried and his new wife seems to have some issues with Yitian's requests, particularly that she wants him to sign over their house to her in order for their son to be enrolled in the school of that neighborhood, which is much better than the one Yitian is living now. Furthemore, Ma Huai is in financial trouble and turns to her for a loan, while some loan sharks are on his heels, despite the fact that he tries to appear rich and content.
Yitian has a boyfriend, a lawyer, who is trying to get a divorce from his wife but repeatedly failing, with her being added to the list of women who are jealous of Yitian. Her father Fa Xiang, an alcoholic, is eventually hospitalized during a trip to the city, while her cousin, who essentially grew up as her brother, is trying to make ends meet in the city by working as a food deliverer, but is also struggling. As the situation in her work also deteriorates, Yitian finds pressure coming towards her from all sides, even from ones she could have never anticipated.
Through a plethora of characters and their labyrinthic relationships, Liu Yulin makes a number of comments about the multileveled difficulties people face in the big cities. Financial problems, the difficulty of starting and retaining romantic relationships, raising children, dealing with one's own parents and the intense psychological burden all these place on people are highlighted quite eloquently through the plethora of characters here. While the individual stories and a number of individuals are quite interesting (the lawyer's wife, a friend of Yitian's, and the various men for example) their sheer number and the stories Liu Yulin is trying to explore do become excessive after a point, as the 118 minute of the movie do not allow her to explore them all thoroughly. Although the same does not apply to Yitian, whose is actually analyzed fully, the story and its intense episodic nature end up looking more something suited for a multi-episode TV series than a single film, in an issue that brings its quality significantly down.
Technically, however, the movie is on a rather high level. Starting from the casting, Huang Lu as Yitian is quite convincing in the struggles she faces, while Guo Tao as Mahuai and Zhang Guoli as Faxiang are very entertaining in their tragicomical performances. In general, the casting and the acting are among the best traits of the movie.
Furthermore, Ni Liaohan's cinematography captures the various aspects of the urban setting with realism and artistry, either in hospitals, apartments, the radio station, offices, schools, high and low class joints. Also of note here are the brief “action” scenes interspersed throughout the movie, which are very well-shot and provide a welcome relief from the drama that dominates the narrative, even if they are also dramatic. Zhang Yongxing's editing results in a mid-tempo, faster than what is usually the case in family drama, which suits the episodic nature of the movie nicely. At the same time, and as mentioned before, the film would definitely benefit from some trimming in both characters and episodes.
Liu Yulin is a competent director, with an eye for composition and interesting ideas as a script writer. She just needs to make some choices about what she keeps and what she leaves out in her stories, which is the main issue of “In Our Prime”, a film that is definitely well shot but ends up being too much for its own good.
