An estate agent and a casino worker fall in love through letters in this follow-up to Finding Mr Right…
Writer director Xue Xiaolu follows up her 2013 surprise box office hit Finding Mr Right with Book of Love, another romantic comedy, released in some territories as Finding Mr Right 2. Reuniting Xue with the stars of the original, Tang Wei and Wu Xiubo, the film offers a modern Chinese take on Helene Hanff’s classic 1970s novel 84, Charing Cross Road, with the two falling in love through letters sent across the globe. Shot in China, Macau, London, the US and Canada, the film is an ambitious one for its genre, and was another domestic hit, opening at the top of the Chinese box office.
Tang Wei plays ‘Killer’ Jiao Ye, working in a Macau casino while looking for love and trying to pay off the debts left to her by her gambler father. All the way on the other side of the world, Wu Xiubo’s Daniel works as an estate agent in Los Angeles, selling properties to rich Chinese clients desperate to find huge houses with access to elite schools for their children. The two are brought together after both find a copy of the book 84, Charing Cross Road, and blaming it for their shared bad luck decide to send it back to London, where a shopkeeper mixes them and their accompanying notes up and sends them back. Jiao Ye and Daniel enter into an increasingly romantic and close correspondence, despite having no idea what each other looks like or really does, and they gradually fall in love. Life gets in the way however, with Daniel learning lessons while trying to swindle an elderly couple out of their home, and Jiao Ye is offered an indecent proposal by an older gambler (Wang Zhiwen) as a means of getting out of the clutches of the debt collector hounding her (Sam Lee).
The most fitting word to describe Book of Love is simply ‘nice’. Although this might sound like damning with faint praise, Xue Xiaolu’s film really is nice throughout, remaining pleasant and good-natured even when dealing with drama, and with even potentially darker situations being resolved cheerfully. There’s nothing wrong with this of course, and for anyone looking for romantic fluff, the film does deliver in terms of a good looking cast, relationship woes, slick production values and a glamourous series of global locations. Working in a variety of subplots and fun gambling scenes along the way, Xue Xiaolu keeps things moving well, and the film feels brisker than its worryingly long two hours plus running time might suggest, helped by some mildly amusing comedy.
To its credit the film does try to tackle a few social issues, chiefly the changing face of modern China and the generational differences and troubles which ensue, highlighted here through Daniel’s experiences with Paul Chun and Wu Yanshu’s 80-something couple, and his friendship of sorts with a rich client’s unhappy young son. While like everything else in the film this is handled gently and in the most amiable fashion possible, it does add a certain substance, as well as a few engaging plot developments. More interesting is the fact that money looms large throughout, at the root of both Daniel and Jiao Ye’s problems and being the main thing which ties together all of its characters and their situations. While the script stops short of any sharp criticism of the money-oriented nature of modern Chinese culture (and certainly goes out of its way to glamorise the lives of the rich), mainly sticking to some clichéd longings for the motherland and dumplings, this does at least give it somewhat of a moral voice.
Oddly, where the film falls down somewhat is when it comes to actual romance, of which it has precious little. Although both Tang Wei and Wu Xiubo are on solid and likeable form, it’s their individual stories which keep the viewer watching, rather than the eventual question as to whether or not they’ll get together. Part of the problem comes from the odd decision to have them communicate with imagined fantasy versions of each other throughout the film, neither of which are convincing or bear much resemblance to their actual selves, resulting in a marked lack of chemistry between the stars. This both undermines their supposed emotional connection and often feels pointless, Xue playing these scenes either for cutesy comedy or exposition in a way which really doesn’t add much to the film. Presumably the device was employed as a means of distracting modern audiences from the gimmick of having the characters fall in love through the old-fashioned practice of writing letters, something which seems strange in an age of smartphones and WeChat (why the two never exchange contact details is never explained), and it never convinces, not least due to the ridiculous speed in which they seem to receive their often extremely short and text message-like letters.
This is perhaps a little harsh, as Xue Xiaolu is clearly aiming for big-hearted rather than believable, and as mentioned above, Book of Love is nothing if not nice. Well-made and benefitting from appealing lead stars and locations, it manages to avoid the crassness of many other recent commercial Chinese romantic comedies, and does enough to make it an entertaining watch.