It’s hard to miss the point this badly, so I gotta give it up for writer/director Leste Chen, who has failed to a somewhat impossible degree to understand the point of a generation swap movie.
Wait. That’s not fair. But for two full hours that’s what it felt like. What is the point? Well, you are supposed to take a person too old/too young – a nice person, someone deserving of a fantasy, and you make him/her transform *poof* into a member of a different generation. First there’s awkward, then there’s bliss, then there’s fun, then the person realizes (s)he is better off at the original point. Every one of these stories is a bi-product of It’s a Wonderful Life.
So what do you do when the person is –clearly- better off in the age group (s)he doesn’t belong to? Shen Mengjun (Ya-Lei Kuei) is a proud grandma. Pretty good looking one, too. (Dude, your nana is hot!) She’s also a miserable cur. At the senior center, she cheats at Mahjongg while taunting her rival. I do love how in China, high school teacher is a profession to boast, but that still doesn’t make her behavior palatable. At home, she’s even worse. She undermines her daughter-in-law at every turn. This is treated as a comic, but I found her an ogre. And in the next scene, we discover that grannie’s antics are literally driving her daughter-in-law to an early grave. That’s when son and spouse decide to ship grandma to an old folks home.
Now is the part of the film where the transformation happens, of course, but there’s no thematic rationale behind it – she’s not nice enough to deserve a cosmic intervention and she’s also not a Scrooge, just a busy-body, so the lesson she may or may not eventually learn is almost 100% personal; there’s no higher purpose for turning Shen into 20-year-old MengLijun (Zishan Yang). It takes a while for grannie to acclimate; her immediate reaction is to head to the senior center – Suddenly, woohoo! I rule at soft rock tai chi line dancing! Then, she taunts her rival at Mahjongg again (and as they’re playing for money, she comes off as a shark). Not satisfied with bettering this poor woman on consecutive days, she also shove
s her off stage during the middle of a ballad. Yes, she sings better (this is the eventual plot), but her manners are deplorable. And 20 Once Again (Chongfan 20 Sui) actually has the nerve to kill off this rival later in the film and then have her weep in earnest as both ladies took her antics to be good fun.
Swap movies are supposed to expose generational truths. Most striking in this process here is that our “heroine” (for lack of a better word) learns that age is mostly about the audience she can talk down to. I especially love that part where she returns back home as a guest of her grandson and starts right up again on how the daughter-in-law can’t keep house. It’s one thing to do this when you’ve sired the domicile bread-winner and quite another when everybody thinks you’re a guest. And yes, grandson is now hot for grandma, but this storyline is largely ignored in favor of her ruining the love life of her offspring. 20 Once Again is surface cute, but insidious; the best thing I took out of this is the knowledge that outdoor rock ‘n’ roll concerts exist in China. Could have used some sex and drugs to go with it, folks.
♪I’m seventy for a moment
Caught cheating at Mahjongg tiles
And I’m just dreaming
Of how to critique my son’s spouse
I’m twenty just for a moment
And it feels better than ever
To return to the old folks home
And resume cheating at Mahjongg again
Twenty there’s still time for you
To live a dream of selfish abuse
Twenty, given a wish of mystical fate
Completely wasted on this generator of hate♫
Not Rated, 131 Minutes
D: Leste Chen
W: Leste Chen
Genre: Big Small
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Old people watching this film an imagining another one.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Youngsters horrified at the idea of dating their grandparents
♪ Parody inspired by “100 years”
