Three years after the phenomenal success of “Hi, Mom” (it is still the third most successful film ever in China), Jia Ling is back with another heart-warming dramedy, a remake of the knockout Japanese indie drama “100 Yen Love”. And once again, the director, writer and actress used a similar formula to storm her way to the top of the 2024 Lunar New Year box office.
This time, Jia Ling plays Leying, a thirty-something introvert who still lives with her family, refuses to have a job, spends her time sleeping and is hopelessly obese. Everything suddenly becomes unbearable when her family turns against her and her boyfriend leaves her for her best friend. Deciding to move out and finally take control of her life, Leying gets a small-time job as a waitress and becomes quickly fascinated with the nearby gym… especially one of its boxing coaches.
Check the review of the original film
This is only the beginning of the many hilarious and poignant misadventures Leying will experience in the course of the film, as she will sometimes be helped, but also often be manipulated, betrayed, harassed, mocked and humiliated. Shy, awkward Leying is an immensely kind-hearted person, something too many people will identify as a weakness to take advantage of her and to hide their own flaws, failings and insecurities.
But it is soon clear that Leying might also be somewhat depressed, adding gravitas to a film that could otherwise have been just another popular comedy. In fact, one possible reading of the film is as a tale on how to fight depression, and the difficult mix of comedy and drama is to a large extent successful in allowing “YOLO” to deal with such a difficult topic in a family-friendly way. Although the filmmakers transformed what was originally an understated independent drama into a broader comedy and crowd-pleasing blockbuster, they remained true to its core elements and its inherent grittiness, while adding and transforming certain elements in a thoughtful way.
Very much like in “Hi, Mom”, Ling and her co-writers (to a large extent the same team) manage to vividly convey the beauty, commotion and viciousness of family life. They show how parents and siblings can bring us support and love while still hurting us with their selfishness, pettiness and vindictiveness. In doing so, the film fleshes out the character’s family and gives more prominence to her issues with them. Beyond the character’s obesity, which was also added to the original plot, this feels like the film’s major addition to the original, helping it reach new dramatic heights.
Ling brings heart as well as a touching vulnerability and sincerity to her performance. Her Leying is a bumbling, clumsy nobody who will in due time achieve something where most people eventually give up and go for what a character calls “mediocrity”. People like her love interest, the down-on-his-luck boxing coach Hao Kun, played by Lei Jiaying. Where Leying is somewhat of an extraordinary, inspiring character, Hao is the other side of the coin, giving up on his dream of self-improvement and choosing a life that comes across as an overall failure.
Funny and heart-wrenching, “YOLO” (the acronym for “You Only Live Once”) is at heart an inspirational film, much more so than its Japanese predecessor and very much like one of its major inspirations, Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky”. In the second hour, after having its heroine go through so many hardships and betrayals, it thankfully moves away from the trappings of romance to allow Leying to fight back – literally. She takes up boxing and is soon filmed in training montages directly inspired by Stallone’s classic boxing drama, the gold standard of the genre. “YOLO” even uses the main musical theme from that movie while the camera films our heroine triumphantly ascending the steps to self-discipline and self-realization – surely one of the most iconic images in film history.
Such references are a way for the movie to acknowledge that it is not saying anything new but is saying it with its own voice and style. What is new here is how Jia Ling herself decided to train and lose weight in parallel with her character (who loses 50kg within a year), documenting her own regimen in the closing credits. This gives more substance to her character’s journey of empowerment (no fat suit or body double here!) and the overall message of self-improvement in the face of adversity.
When done right, such stories can work powerfully with audiences, and “YOLO” has clearly done it right. Some audiences will inevitably find the film too cloying and emotional for their own tastes, yet there is more finesse here than in most run-of-the-mill sentimental melodramas. The camera work is especially striking, with one scene of verbal confrontation between Leying and Hao made more arresting by the long tracking shot filming the two characters from various angles, including the mirror in which they seem to be facing themselves rather than each other.
Another interesting scene is the extreme long shot that films Leying as an insignificant, miserable point in the distance while she painfully climbs the stairs to her apartment building as a storm rages. This is one of the lowest and darkest points in the film, made even more dramatic by a late revelation, illustrating how clever both the direction and the writing can be – and how somber the mood can become. This is rare for such family oriented fare.
The ending is also more successful than the original one, as “YOLO” rejects the conventional romantic happy ending “100 Year Love” had gone for. The discussion around female empowerment has evolved since then and more films have been willing to imagine a character’s achievements and self-realization outside of the confines of a romantic relationship. This is a great choice on the part of the filmmakers and justifies on its own the remake’s very existence.
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This being said, by adding layers of drama the film does go over the top sometimes. This includes a vague subplot about a cousin and a job search reality show, a story arc which feels artificial and utterly unnecessary given the dramatic weights Leying is already trying to lift. Social commentary is not this film’s forte, although including social media in the overall plot could have worked given the importance of peer pressure in the way we look at ourselves and establish our own self-esteem. There is also a smaller, almost inconsequential subplot involving sexual harassment at work, something still very rare in Chinese cinema (but which, it should be noted, was much weightier in the original).
The overall message here is not to accept yourself as you are, but on the contrary not to and instead fight to transform and improve yourself, physically and/or mentally, to learn to respect and love yourself. This might rub some people the wrong way, especially when it comes to the difficult issue of obesity. Yet this is clearly, given the film’s box office triumph, an old-fashioned message that still has a lot of emotional resonance with contemporary audiences, be they in China or elsewhere. We can all recognize ourselves in Leying.
