IF YOU ARE THE ONE (China, 2008)
Directed by: Feng Xiaogang
Starring: Shu Qi, Ge You, Alex Fong, Vivian Hsu

Forget about Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. The most successful director in China right now is Feng Xiaogang (ASSEMBLY, THE BANQUET) and the second most successful movie in the history of Chinese film is his gorgeous romantic comedy, IF YOU ARE THE ONE. Defying all expectations, the film features two actors who got their start in Hong Kong Category III (adult) films: Shu Qi and Alex Fong. It refuses to cater to Western stereotypes of China, depicting the country as a cosmopolitan vacation destination rather than an environmentally-devastated hell-hole, and it’s the only romantic comedy you’ll see this year with a cameo appearance by Adolf Hitler.

Longtime Feng Xioagang regular, Ge You, plays Qin Fen, an inventor who strikes it rich. Step two of his life-plan? Find a wife. He promptly puts up one of the most hilariously off-putting personal ads you’ve ever read. “No gold-diggers,” it reads. “To avoid mutual disappointment, no PhD’s should apply. No woman entrepeneurs (tradeswomen and peddlers excepted)...Don’t be too young. Don’t be too complicated.” It would be a sexist screed if he wasn’t also devastatingly honest about his own lack of charms. After spending a decade overseas he reports that he’s a three-strikes returnee. “No company. No stocks. No degree.” Next comes the traditional bad date montage, and that’s when the audience notices that something is different. The montage is played for laughs, but not at the expense of its subjects who are given enough room to get across that they’re not two-dimensional jokes, but real women who are desperate to find someone to love, and if they aren’t loved back at first, well, give it time.

Enter Shu Qi as Smiley Liang, a flight attendant who Qin writes off because she’s too good-looking for him. Aftter a disastrous first date they go on their separate ways but collide again on a flight. She’s suffering at the hands of her married boyfriend (Alex Fong) who promises her the moon, but will never leave his wife. Ge You is tired and has nothing to lose, Shu Qi is freshly hurt and still bleeding, in danger of losing everything and holding on to what she has left with her fingernails. 

We’ve outsourced everything to China, so why not romances. This is the best of the year and it’s cosmopolitan, urbane, funny and it does something that few romances manage to do these days, it’s actually romantic. And razor sharp, constantly watching people’s egos inflate to an unconscionable degree and then deflating them with pin prick dialogue. Needle sharp dialogue with continual jokes about the economic crisis, Obama’s election and the weak dollar. 

Like a lover, IF YOU AR ETHE ONE pulls you in with its charms, then it flirts with you, seduces you, opens its heart to you, and finally, inexplicably, you fall in love with this clever, gorgeous, movie. It’s a movie that gives you hope that the past doesn’t matter, the present is full of possibility and the future is looking brighter all the time.