If You Are The One
Feng Xiaogang

The story: Qin Fen (Ge You) places a personals ad for a wife, and to his surprise, the beautiful Xiaoxiao (Shu Qi) responds. They form a tentative friendship which grows into something stronger.

After a detour into the genre du jour of historical epics with The Banquet (2006) and Assembly (2007), director Feng Xiaogang is back doing what he does best – gently skewering modern society and making you laugh in the process.
The template here is taken from Taiwanese writer-director Chen Kuo-fu’s The Personals (1998), in which singer-actress Rene Liu was a single professional woman seeking a husband. This was the set-up for a wry look at love and life in modern Taiwan.
In If You Are The One, which Chen produced, it is a middle-aged man searching for a wife on the mainland.
Released in China on Dec 22 last year, the film struck a chord with audiences. It has earned 350 million yuan (S$78 million) at the box office, one of the highest-grossing Chinese films, and also set off a trend of people looking for spouses online.
The succinct, funny and poignant ad written by Qin Fen (a homonym of the Mandarin term for hardworking) is destined to be a classic circulated through e-mail messages and online forums.
He is realistic: “If you’re an angel, I won’t be able to handle you. I don’t expect you to look like that girl on the magazine cover, scattering souls with just one look.”
He is detailed: “I like a woman who knows how to fold clothes such that when you finish washing, ironing and folding them, they will look exactly like when you bought them from the stores. Specific enough?”
He is honest: “My character’s a 50-50 split and I’m not exactly an honest man. But I was born timid, even if it is not illegal to kill, I wouldn’t kill anyone. My conscience will be tortured by guilt if I do anything cruel to others.”
Yet who should walk into his life but the gorgeous Xiaoxiao, who responds to the ad for reasons of her own. Shu Qi downplays her natural sultriness and is a good foil to Ge, making it one of those rare odd couple pairings which actually seem plausible.
Feng and Ge have worked together in several films from the hit comedy Be There Or Be Square (1998) to the infidelity drama Cell Phone (2003) and the loose Hamlet adaptation The Banquet. They have a good thing going and Feng knows how best to showcase his leading man’s charms.
The genius of Ge’s performance is that he underplays the scenes, remaining unflappable and genial even when presented with increasingly unusual respondents to his ad.
The meetings with prospective partners are milked for laughs but are also a sly comment on society today. There is the grave plot saleswoman, the trader who likens picking a mate to betting on stocks and even a man who nurses a crush on Qin.
Feng riffs on anything and everything from China-Taiwan relations to materialism to the preferred frequency of sex in a relationship.
Unfortunately, the film is marred by the final act which takes place in Hokkaido.
Qin and Xiaoxiao, the not-quite-couple, go on the trip as she intends to make a symbolic clean break with her married lover where it had all started. Some forced dramatics are thrown in and derail the film.
But overall, this is an enjoyable film largely buoyed by Ge’s deft performance.
(ST)