介绍:
The Breakup Guru is the latest example of how one-man's license can backfire, and how twisted China's upstart movie industry can become.
Among all the Chinese celebrity couples that I know of, none is more odd than the combination of Deng Chao and Sun Li. 32-year-old Sun has recently shot to fame after her appearance in soap opera "The Legend of Zhen Huan" captured the attention of countless men and women who worship the sort of earthly sophistication known as court intrigue. Her composed and graceful manner belies a vengeful soul who sees everything and controls everything. And that's pretty cool.
In contrast, her husband Deng Chao is trying to shape himself as a "Rigoletto" type of figure, going all out to defy sanity in "The Breakup Guru" and at the film's various promotional events. There are a couple of reasons behind his frenzied performances.
For one thing, "The Breakup Guru" was adapted from a play of the same name by theatre director Yu Baimei, who happens to be an old-time project partner of Deng. This time, the duo are collaborating again on a story of a charlatan who makes a living by helping people breakup. The encounters are not at all pleasant. Despite the format being a film, their new joint venture emanates the same exaggerated, dramatic quality of a theatric play.
Secondly, Deng Chao himself appears to be a master of this burlesque approach of performing. Since his graduation piece from China's Central Academy of Drama, Deng has repeatedly proven his talent for playing multiple roles of different yet extreme characters, "The Breakup Guru" may consist of many challenging scene of low taste, but in the end it is just a private testing ground for him to simply BE HIMSELF.
Thirdly and rather unfortunately, there is no one there to rein in his overflowing performance, because he is also the director, and presumably a good friend of the other director Yu Baimei.
There is also no incentive to curb his frenzy, because No.1 he is so darn good at it, and No.2 they have such a lousy script that only an overwhelming figure could keep the audience on their seats.
Exactly how bad is the script? Well, the first half makes no sense, and the second half shows some futile efforts to make some sense, but arrives at nonsense all the same. As a breakup guru, Deng's only method is to try and attract the female target and sabotage the relationship as a third wheel. Doesn't sound like a skilled problem-solver at all, let alone an expert. Then he comes across this really headstrong girl who simply wouldn't let go of a good-for-nothing idiot, and guess what, he falls in love. All the while as the grotesque story develops, there is this constant mockery of people's obsession with "success", the message is pretty clear the first time, but for reasons unknown, it has to be repeated time and time again, I guess the directors must have felt pretty strongly about it.
Such is the film that dared challenge the Hollywood behemoth of "Transformers: Age of Extinction". And it has actually done pretty well in terms of box office takings, earning nearly 600 million yuan in China - about one third of the Transformers and within exactly the same timeframe.
Deng Chao's acting skills certainly helped, but so did the next-to-vulgarity content. Until most of our people can begin to appreciate films other than comedy, China will always be on the way to becoming a truly great nation.
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