SHANGHAI CALLING：Purely Chinese Romantic Comedy

Derek ELLEY  is Chief Film Critic of Film Bussiness Asia. Elley has been writing about East Asian cinema for almost 40 years,especially Chinese-language films,and has arranged numerous seasons and tributes both in the UK, at London\'s National Film Theatre,and elsewhere, at Washington\'s American Film Institute. In 1998 he co-founded the Far East Film Festival, in Udine, Italy, devoted to mainstream Asian cinema.

 

Best described as an American film with "strong Chinese characteristics", SHANGHAI CALLING is very much a love letter by Chinese-American writer-director Daniel Hsia to the city and country of his parents\' birth. Hsia\'s background is a writer of US TV comedy and his first feature, a coproduction is extremely slick at both a production and writing level, with none of the awkwardnesses that often afflict such undertakings.

On its surface the film is actually nothing new: an arrogant young Chinese-American lawyer is posted from New York to Shanghai against his will and learns to adjust to cultural differences as well as discover his Chinese roots. But Hsia keeps the tone light, makes it quite clear that his main character, Sam Chao, is not there to demonstrate any superiority of western ways, and creates likeable characters who aren\'t just cultural stereotypes.

It says a lot for Hsia\'s research - and for the development of China\'s own industry the past five years or so - that, apart from its theme and the presence of American actors, SHANGHAI CALLING doesn\'t seem much different from many purely Chinese romantic comedies. The characters are believable and develop in interesting ways, and the locals are no more stereotypical than the Americans.

The film doesn\'t have the more grounded realism of, say, French director Fabien Gaillard\'s charming cross-cultural romance LAO WAI (also set in Shanghai), but then it doesn\'t pretend to be portraying the same universe. Even though the audience is asked to believe that Sam (a clever Chinese-American) has never eaten baozi, has never drunk Chinese tea, hasn\'t researched business-card etiquette and can\'t even read a simple map, even these foreigner-in-China cliches are entertainingly woven into the script and not made the main focus of the movie.
The biggest surprise is the performance of Korean-American actor-model Daniel Henney. Other performances are also on the nail: US actress Eliza Coupe as a China-lover who is suspicious of Sam\'s motives, US veteran Bill Paxton as a longtime Shanghai resident, and Zhu Zhu as Sam\'s local assistant. Though the film shows Hsia\'s American origins in the more romantic middle section, SHANGHAI CALLING ends up- partly thanks to actor Geng Le\'s voiceover- as very Chinese in its heart.