2015-06-16

What We’ve Missed in the Fleet of Time

The still of FLEET OF TIME.

Teenage love proves a fragile thing across the span of 15 years in FLEET OF TIME, another entry in the currently popular Mainland genre that follows youthful, idealistic relationships to the realities of modern-day adulthood (SO YOUNG , FOREVER YOUNG , MY OLD CLASSMATE ). This sixth feature by director-producer Zhang Yibai lacks the personal edge of his Chongqing-set drama LOST INDULGENCE , or the intellectual ambition of his first film SPRING SUBWAY, but gets by on slick technique and most of the performances, in much the same way as his THE LONGEST NIGHT IN SHANGHAI and ETERNAL MOMENT. Basically a will-they/won\'t-they romantic drama, flashbacking to and fro from high school to the present day, it doesn\'t have the epic ambitions and character depth of SO YOUNG but within its more modest parameters is actually better balanced.

The script is adapted from the third novel of popular Beijing-born writer Wang Xiaodi, a banner-carrier for the generation born in the \'80s and now in their 30s. Published in 2009, the novel had earlier started life as a kind of memoir of Wang\'s and her friends\' own high-school and university days but later morphed into a deeper, heftier reflection.

Starting with the main male character, Chen Xun, getting drunk at a party and confessing how he deliberately scored lower in his university entrance exam in order to follow the girl - Fang Hui - whom he loved, the film yoyos between past and present: the high-school and university days of Chen, Fang and their pals, and the modern day in which they reunite for the wedding of one of their group. The structure is hardly new, but the playing is lively, especially by actor Eddie Peng as Chen, Ryan Zheng in a typically cocky role as his best friend, and model-turned-actress Zhang Zixuan as the classmate the latter fancies.

Peng, 33, has always been better in lighter fare like this but the high-school scenes in particular are rather one-sided, with Fang in a passive role in which she keeps blowing hot and cold. In only her fifth movie, actress Ni Ni, 26, plays young more convincingly than Peng and has a suitably elusive, ethereal beauty that fits the role of Fang. But the film only gains some real emotional traction at the 90-minute point, in a drunken dinner between the five main characters that lays bare their conflicts. Ni (THE FLOWERS OF WAR ) shines in this sequence.

As in all of Zhang\'s films, packaging is very smooth, from the seamless editing by the experienced Kong Jinlei, a well-spotted romantic score by Hong Kong\'s Kubert Leung that\'s very effective at pointing up the drama, and attractive photography by Li Bingqiang (TWO GREAT SHEEP) that uses light-play in the youthful scenes and harder lighting for the modern day.