SOPHIE’S REVENGE (China, 2009)
Directed by: Eva Jin
Starring: Zhang Ziyi, Fan Bingbing, So Ji-Sub

You need to know: the conspiracy is real. 20 years ago, American film distributors secretly met with the CIA and were told that it was their patriotic duty to convince audiences that China was hell on earth. To that end they agreed to only import Chinese movies about unwashed orphans riding in the backs of rusty trucks through industrial hellscapes populated by unwed mothers who sit in the dirt and cry over all their abortions. So when a movie like SOPHIE'S REVENGE comes along that shows actual, modern, middle class China our minds short circuit.

Sophie (Zhang Ziyi of MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON fame) is a cartoonist about to marry debonair doctor, Jeff (Korean slice of hotness So Ji-Sub, whose appearance at last year’s NYAFF sparked a fangirl riot). But Jeff is a dirty dog who ditches her for ravishing actress, Joanna (Fan Bingbing, BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS). For most folks, that's where the healing would begin, but Sophie’s mom has already planned her daughter's wedding and she’s not going to tolerate any shenanigans: if Sophie isn't marching down the aisle in a white dress ASAP there will be hell to pay. Driven to desperation, Sophie vows to win Jeff back using “scientific methods” which, this being a romantic comedy, are all doomed to elaborate, extravagant, humiliating failure.

It’s a kind of Beijing Jones’ Diary jazzed up with animated interludes, ridiculous hallucinations, dreams, fantasies, low down slapstick and high brow verbal sparring. But what sets it on fire are the performances by Zhang Ziyi and Fan Bingbing. This is the first movie produced by Zhang Ziyi, and there aren't many producers who would allow themselves to spend so much screen time throwing up, getting peed on, tumbling down stairs, falling out windows, getting drunk and generally making a complete ass of themselves. The "you complete me" ice to her fire is Fan Bingbing, one of China’s major “it” girls, who plays a diva so frosty that just one of her contemptuous glares could freeze the Pacific Ocean.

Let Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye make all the miserablist movies about China they want. What Zhang Ziyi and the team behind SOPHIE’S REVENGE understand is that China's a country like any other where people want to fall in love, face rejection, get the guy, get the girl and wear some fabulous clothes in between. It’s unlikely that another romantic comedy this light, this fizzy and this fast on its feet is going to come along this year, from Hollywood, from China or from anywhere else. So leave your dirty orphans and rusty trucks in the parking lot and buy a ticket to the check out the new face of Mainland Chinese cinema.