An original concept that falls short due to shaky film extra talent and predictable comedy-drama formula…
Former Shaw Brothers actor turned writer and director Derek Yee has spent much of his career in the company of the silent stars of cinema: the film extras. Now, in his latest China-Hong Kong Co-production, Yee’s comedy-drama I Am Somebody (我是路人甲) pivots the camera 180 degrees to tell a story about these film extras. Of course, this is not about Hollywood California. Instead, this is an ode to those who travel from all over Mainland China to Hengdian World Studios, or as one character states ‘Hollywood of the East’, in the hopes of attaining fame, fortune or perhaps just a regular income.
For those who haven’t heard of it, Hengdian World Studios is located in southeast China’s Zhejiang Province and boasts the world’s largest film studio that houses life sized replicas of the Imperial Palace and Summer Palace, along with the largest indoor Buddha statue and an impressive carousel that lights up the city at night. For his 2002 film Hero, Zhang Yimou used the Imperial Palace building as the backdrop for the Emperor Qin’s palace. If you watch early Chinese period dramas from the Qin and Han dynasties, there’s a strong possibility that it was shot at this studio.
Although the plot to I Am Somebody is highly predictable and the film often provides the viewer with a mouthful of facts and figures about living as a film extra in Hengdian, it is obvious that director Yee’s heart is in the right place.
First of all, Yee spent two years collecting real life stories in and around Hengdian studios. Secondly, the cast members were actually plucked out from the mass of film extras who work in the film industry. Casting unknown actors to play lead characters poses a considerable marketing risk. However, by acting as themselves- albeit with a fictional storyline- there’s a vein of documentary realism coursing through the whole film.
The hero is Peng (Wan Guopeng) who has grown up in Snow Town which is located in wintry Dongbei province and is popular with tourists who arrive every winter to attend the world famous Harbin Ice Festival. Peng has just graduated and is eager to live out his life-long dream of migrating to Hengdian and becoming a famous actor. He has studied Stanislavsky and with hope and £160 in his pocket, he leaves his non-discerning affable parents to pursue that dream.
When Peng arrives in Hengdian, he is offered a personal tour by the local Tuk Tuk driver who rips him off but not before he takes him to the entrance gates of the studio and reels off some impressive statistics about the numbers and types of films produced there. When the driver points out that 48 out of the 150 films produced at the studio in 2012 dealt with the Sino-Japan war, he also injects some typical anti-Japan humour by telling Peng, ‘This is not just a studio. It is a bastion of anti-Japan war effort!’
With youthful optimism, Peng finds a new home in the Joy Hotel, collects his union card and begins working as a film extra. Here, Yee explores disparate work attitudes of the men in this marginal group. There’s Wei Xing (Wei Xing), whose pride gets in the way of his talent, handsome Zhao (Wang Zhao) who is blessed with model looks but who would prefer to slack off and Kai (Shen Kai), who values his menial acting gigs over his relationship with Xiaoqin (Xu Xiaoqin), his pregnant wife. Unlike the men, the female film extras do not struggle with work ethic, ego, or self-esteem. Instead, they fret over their romantic relationships and become savvy about sexploitation of women by film industry figures.
Although the film starts and ends with Peng, it is also about love. That is, it is about the consequences of love when it collides with indvidual career aspirations. No doubt about it. This is a moral tale about the benefits of hard work and the good guy who eventually gets what he wants, which in Peng’s case is a career and the girl Ting (Wang Ting). However, Yee’s film demonstrates some universal pressures by modern day people who are conflicted by love and their pursuit for a career in someplace like the Dream Factory.
There’s also something exciting about having real film extras express their emotions about their roles in the industry. When a character screams out, ‘how do you turn shit into motivation?!’ you empathise with his frustration because it feels genuine. Unfortunately, Yee doesn’t take time to tease out the complexities of their angst. At other times, Peng’s amateurish acting skills fall flat or unwittingly swing in the direction of comedy when he attempts to express serious emotions.
Overall, I Am Somebody has an original concept and offers a rare behind-the-scenes perspective of life as a film extra in Mainland China but plays it safe with the predictability of a morality tale.
