Psych!
Yan FEi and Peng Damo’s massively popular gaslighting comedy is a true head-scratcher.
Successor
Directors: Yan Fei, Peng Damo • Writers: Lin Bingbao, Yan Fei, Peng Damo
Starring: Shen Teng, Ma Li, Shi Pengyuan, Sa Rina
China • 2hrs 14mins
Opens Hong Kong Aug 22 • IIA
Grade: C+
Okay, so in fictional Slinkytown, China, crazy-rich industrialist Ma Chenggang (Shen Teng, Hi, Mom, Moon Man) and his wife Chunlan (Ma Li, Article 20) want to ensure their son and sole heir Ma Jiye (Xiao Bochen as a kid, Shi Pengyuan as a teen) grows up to be a virtuous and honourable man. One worthy of taking over Ma’s vast empire and doing right. They think the best way to guarantee this is to feign destitution, move into a dilapidated hutong-ish building, force young Jiye to run to school every day – because dad needs the donkey to take him to work – and scrimp and sacrifice to ensure he gets an education and gets out of poverty. Also living with the Mas is Chenggang’s mother (TV staple Sa Rina), who does her best to impart wisdom on young Jiye when she’s not suffering from some kind of ailment. In reality, Ma has orchestrated an enormous campaign to gaslight Jiye into believing he needs to work hard and be good, and the family’s meagre surroundings are just cover for an intricate subterranean network of state-of-the-art tech designed to control Jiye’s life and steer him down the path his father wants him on.
Successor | 抓娃娃 is the third in directing duo Yan Fei and Peng Damo’s (Goodbye Mr Loser and Hello Mr Billionaire) unofficial Slinkytown Trilogy and is the biggest hit of the three; a massive box office success forecast for a US$500 million haul when all is said and done. It’s a supremely broad broad comedy that gets bogged down in repetition and baffling gaslighting hardy hars, with a curious central idea about a single guiding hand in a life being a bad thing. Huh.
Should we lie about his teeth?
There are shades of The Truman Show and even One More Chance hovering over Successor, though Yan, Peng and co-writer Lin Bingbao use the core ideas to question whether or not Ma himself is doing the right thing. Ma appears to have everyone in town in on his game – he controls how Jiye engages with the media, the market, traffic, neighbours, local vendors, tourists, all of it – and it works right up until it doesn’t. When Jiye shows an interest in running (why is it always running?) and finds a coach, Ma conspires and connives and convinces his son he’s literally too unhealthy to run. Sure, Successor is a broad comedy bordering on farce, but gaslighting jokes only go so far – especially when we have to watch them multiple times. The jokes here aren’t just stepped on. They’re thrown on the ground and a boot is put firmly on their throats.
The expected emotional reckoning hits when Jiye finally discovers his world isn’t what he thinks it is, and that reckoning is as curious as it is mawkish. Ma, to this point the devoted father who just wants what’s best for his son, curdles into something more sinister, and it throws the entire film into confounding territory critical of micro-managing and unilateral decision-making. Dude, that shit’s weird.
Successor isn’t a bad film; it’s not poorly produced, and the cast – particularly Shen and Shi – commit to the bits, weak as they are, 100%, even when they’re forced to do them again and again and again. Successor’s big problem is in its construction, starting with that repetition and persistently introducing elements that ultimately never go anywhere. But to Yan and Peng’s credit (or for armour) all the other expected messaging is here too. Jiye’s long lost brother (Zhang Zidong) turns up with his American “friend” (Danny Ray), and eww gross maybe gay, foreigners are dangerous and when Jiye finally exerts some agency, he does it for his country. All is well. But despite Ma and Shen’s popularity, the film is just too long and is only intermittently amusing, making its phenomenal success the bigger mystery. Wait. Am I being gaslighted right now? — DEK