Goodbye Mr. Loser

Goodbye Mr. Loser
Chinese 夏洛特烦恼
Mandarin Xià Luò Tè Fánnǎo
Directed by Yan Fei
Peng Damo
Starring
Production
companies
Happy Mahua Pictures
New Classics Pictures
Tencent Video
Wanda Media[1]
Distributed by Wuzhou Film Distribution
New Classic Media Corporation[1]
Release date
  • September 30, 2015 (2015-09-30)
Running time
 104 minutes
Country China
Language Mandarin
Box office US$228.5 million[2]

Goodbye Mr. Loser (Chinese: 夏洛特烦恼; pinyin: Xià Luò Tè Fánnǎo) is a 2015 Chinese comedy film directed by Yan Fei and Peng Damo, and starring Shen Teng, Ma Li, Yin Zheng, Ai Lun, Wang Zhi, Tian Yu, Song Yang, Chang Yuan and Li Ping.[3] The film is based on a play of the same name.[4] It was released on September 30, 2015. Some critics have accused the film of containing similar plot elements as the 1986 American film Peggy Sue Got Married. The directors later denied these allegations.

Starring a cast of largely non-film comedians, the film became an enormous sleeper hit in China and was fueled by explosive word of mouth.

Plot

Unemployed amateur musician Xia Luo (Shen Teng) attends the wedding of Qiu Ya (Wang Zhi), his high school crush. He overdrinks, makes an inebriated declaration of love to Qiu Ya, and angers his wife Ma Dongmei (Ma Li), who publicly shames him for being a poor provider and husband.

After causing chaos as his wife pursues him through the wedding hall, Xia Luo locks himself into a bathroom at the wedding venue, flies into a rage of self-hatred and passes out, waking up in his teenage body in his middle-school classroom in 1997. Thinking he is in a dream, he impulsively beats up his teacher, sets fire to the classroom, and kisses Qiu Ya, then jumps out a window to end the dream. But after waking up in hospital and realising he is still in 1997, Xia Luo is forced to make the best of things.

Although Xia Luo appears his normal teenage self to everyone else in 1997, he retains all his memories of adult life, including around twenty years of as yet unwritten pop music—which he decides to present as his own work, to gain fame and to win the heart of Qiu Ya. Over the next twenty years he becomes a pop megastar in China, taking the place of other superstar singers from the original 1990s to 2000s timeline, including 'ghostwriting' famous TV themes for pop radio, duetting with Sarah Brightman at the 2008 Beijing Olympic opening ceremony in place of Liu Huan and producing and judging for a popular music talent TV series (based on The Voice).

Having achieved all of his ambitions including marrying Qiu Ya, Xia Luo gradually realizes that he was destined to be with Ma Dongmei—after he abandoned her in middle school in the new timeline, she nevertheless defended him from bullies and troublemakers and was forced into a simple life in a small apartment, eventually marrying Da Chun, one of Xia Luo's kindly but slow-witted classmates from 1997.

As time goes on, Xia Luo gradually runs out songs from his original time to claim as his own, and his own written songs were criticized as lacking talent. He eventually announces his retirement and starts wasting his money on drugs and women. He also discovers Qiu Ya having an affair with another friend. Disappointed with how his life is turning out, Xia Luo makes a proposal to Da Chun, wanting to trade away all he owns in exchange for his wife, but the frustrated husband punches him into unconsciousness and he wakes up in a hospital bed, where it is discovered he is dying from AIDS. As Xia Luo's health deteriorates, Ma Dongmei sings a final love song to him in his hospital bed, revealing that it was always her favourite, even though he was serenading Qiu Ya with it in the classroom at the time (this song is also the only song Xia Luo truly wrote himself).

At the moment of his death, Xia Luo awakes and finds himself back in the wedding venue bathroom where he realizes that Ma Dongmei is the true love of his life. He runs back into the room and embraces her, which he continues to do as they are both arrested and taken to the local police station. He resumes his normal life much as before but with a new devotion to Ma Dongmei.

The film contains many references to Chinese popular culture in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including cameo appearances and depictions of well-known pop stars of that era. Some celebrities appear as themselves (including Jay Chou as a talent show contestant on The Voice, who performed a song Xia Luo had allegedly written, in reality one that Xia Luo had plagiarized from him), whilst others are depicted through stand-ins (for instance, Miss Na, who talent-spots Xia Luo in the new 1997 timeline).

Cast

Similarities with Peggy Sue Got Married

Two weeks after its premiere, Chinese netizens started posting articles online comparing similar plot elements of the film with those from the 1986 American film Peggy Sue Got Married.[5]

The directors of Goodbye Mr. Loser, Yan Fei and Peng Damo, responded to the allegations of plagiarism with a statement claiming that their film was inspired by a post on the Chinese Internet forum Tianya in 2010, which inspired the theater play by Mahua FunAge with the same name and subsequently the directors adapted it, featuring a loser in his middle age, who magically traveled back to his school days and developed romance with his first love again.[6]

Reception

Box office

A massive sleeper hit in China, the film has grossed US$226.6 million in China. Combined with an overseas box office of US$1.9 million, the film has grossed in total US$228.5 million worldwide as of November 2015.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 "夏洛特烦恼（2015）". cbooo.cn (in Chinese). Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Xia Luo Te Fan Nao (2015)". the-numbers.com. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  3. ↑ "夏洛特烦恼》首映 沈腾马丽自曝拍吻戏不美妙(图)" (in Chinese). China Daily. September 27, 2015. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  4. ↑ CRI (October 9, 2015). "'Goodbye Mr. Loser' Becomes a Dark Horse in China's Box Office". english.entgroup.cn. EntGroup Inc. Retrieved October 9, 2015.
  5. ↑ "《夏洛特烦恼》遭遇真烦恼 被指抄袭《教父》导演旧作" (in Chinese). China National Radio. October 17, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ ""夏洛特烦恼"导演否认抄袭:不要说抄 互相促进" (in Chinese). China.com.cn. October 18, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2015.
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