One Night in Supermarket

Derek ELLEY is Senior Film Critic of the U.S.-based entertainment trade paper "Variety," which has been covering the international film business for over 100 years. Born in London, Elley has been writing about East Asian cinema for over 35 years, especially Chinese-language films, and has arranged numerous seasons both in the U.K. and elsewhere. In 1998, he co-founded the Far East Film Festival, in Udine, Italy, devoted to mainstream Asian movies. He has been visiting China regularly, both for business and pleasure, for over 20 years.

Inventiveness is sustained with a light touch in “One Night in Supermarket,” a one-thing-leads-another comedy of misadventure entirely set in the pic\'s title. Though packaged and aimed squarely at China\'s youth demographic, this could just as well take place in a Seven-Eleven in Santa Monica or Seoul, making it ripe for remake in any lingo. Slickly made feature debut by 28-year-old writer-director Yang Qing could prove a popular breath of fresh air at young, broad-minded fests in the west. Locally, pic goes out in July.

It\'s the wee hours at Wang Wang Supermarket, somewhere in northern China, where nerdy shelf-loader Li Junwei (new teen idol, singer Kimi Qiao) is on duty with - and only has eyes for - Tang Xiaolian (Lulu Li, “Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl”). But the quiet soon lapses into chaos when balding, pop-eyed He Sanshui (Xu Zheng) comes in with two doofus heavies (Zhao Yingjun, Wang Dongfang) and demands to speak to the mart\'s boss lady, Wang Sufen (Yang Qing, not the helmer).

Turns out the boss - who\'s actually off gambling - was responsible for He not being able to claim on a winning lottery ticket, so he wants 9,500 yuan ($1,400) compensation. When Tang explains the boss lady isn\'t around, He & Co. tie Tang up and take over the joint, selling goods to that value. However, business is slow, and as a variety of characters come and go during the night, He turns more desperate. The arrival of the boss lady, and then a gun-toting robber (Zhang Jiayi) looking to retrieve something hidden in the mart, only makes things worse.

Though the movie occasionally tips over into pure physical farce, it manages to keep most of its balls in the air at the same time, with the seven main characters clearly defined and a host of cameos peppering the action. Visually, helmer Yang and d.p. Tong Zhijian make the most of the two main sets (the mart and a side room), and editing is smooth and pacey.

Script twists, particularly in the final half-hour, are clever, with one totally unexpected development and a cheeky coda. Qiao dials down his usual boy-glam stage look as the shy, bespectacled shop assistant, and Li has a relatively lowkey role as the till girl. Dramatically, the going is dominated by two older thesps, Xu (“Crazy Stone”) as the despairing He and, in the final section, Zhang as the wanted robber.

Bright color design is fractionally dimmed by pic\'s HD origins but is OK. Overall, tech package is snappy. Chinese title literally means “Night, Shop.”