Ma Fendou is a lackluster insurance salesman whose life is going nowhere. His best friend Li Fei, a wise cracking delivery man, urges him to just go with the flow. Not wanting to hold her back while he tries to get his life on track, Fendou breaks up with his long time girlfriend Shanshan -- but without her, he spirals into a funk. Then Shangguan Furong, an offbeat lady claiming to be a local Earth Goddess with magical powers, shows up at Fendou's office. She offers to turn his life around by granting him 19 of his old wishes. Fendou laughs Furong off -- until even his old childhood wishes start coming true. To complicate matters, Shanshan is back in town to get married -- but not to him.
Chinese American director Dayyan Eng, who made an explosive debut with his short BUS 44 and Chinese feature film WAITING ALONE over a decade ago, delivers a fun romp and spin on the genie genre, where the schlub learns moral lessons that take him back on the right track. With several cameos by big Chinese stars, WISHED is an energetic, superfluous film with heart, and a welcome addition to contemporary Chinese cinema.
What if all your wishes suddenly became real? Would you still be able to control your life? Wished faces these questions in an outstanding mix of a post-modern fairy tale and a romantic comedy. Filled with dynamic action, visual effects, good acting and lots of humor, this story really demanded an exquisite and skillful director capable of combining so many genres and styles -- from a super hero comic-like action to a subtle, moving love story -- and turn all these elements into an integrated, coherent screen reality. Dayyan Eng did a spectacular job!
Wow! What an amazingly beautiful film. Wished takes us on a journey of an insurance salesman who tries to get his life back on track -- and it is HILARIOUS! The director, Dayyan Eng mixes comedy, action and fantasy at the most accurate dose, and gives the audience 110 minutes of madness. A stunning film in every sense of the word.
Believe it or not, after watching this film, I became obsessed with Victoria Song. A straight male director really does understand straight male aesthetics... It feels like a gift the director gave to his own youth, so there is also a nostalgic element. As a straight guy, I had a great time watching it. The script is solid, the BGM is still excellent, and I really like the self-mocking dialogue in Dayyan Eng's films. Like Waiting Alone, aside from marveling at the director's great connections, you can still feel his full confidence while watching it, which is much more exciting than feeling many directors' arrogance. Childhood wish lists come true one by one, yet in the adult real world, they become bubbles. As a mixed-race director, he blends Hollywood-style broad comedy into a local Chinese setting very naturally. To this day, Dayyan Eng remains one of the mainland directors who knows best how to play with Easter eggs.
Honestly, at first I did not have high expectations for this rather adolescent-feeling comedy, but after watching it, I had to admire Dayyan Eng's magical imagination and skilled storytelling. The film is a little inspirational, a little hot-blooded, and also carries Dayyan Eng's mischievous sense of humor. Especially for men who have already passed adolescence, I believe it will be even more touching. This is Xia Yu's best modern-role performance in recent years, almost as if we see again the natural acting spirit of the 17-year-old boy from In the Heat of the Sun. Victoria Song, Yan Ni, Pan Binlong and others are also lovable. Dayyan Eng has a habit as a director: each time, he likes to suddenly insert a major star into the film as an Easter egg. Waiting Alone had Chow Yun-Fat. Inseparable had Kevin Spacey. This time there is one too. I won't spoil it here; go find it yourselves.
Dayyan Eng makes a comedy only once every many years, and luckily I have not missed any of them. He understands better than anyone how to use male-god cameos, from Chow Yun-Fat in Waiting Alone to whoever-it-is this time in Wished. The little man's counterattack is a familiar formula, but his formula is flamboyant and boldly borrows Hollywood blockbuster looks, while the protagonist is always forced to suffer in silence. This time he suffers because the 19 careless wishes he made from childhood to adulthood are mercilessly granted within a short period of time.
Wished has 120 laugh points throughout the film... That is very impressive for a comedy, because making a good comedy is truly not easy. In fact, Dayyan Eng did not set out to explore any heavy meaning with Wished. It is simply a popcorn movie made to let everyone have a good laugh. On that level alone, he does it very well. Pure entertainment, pure relaxation. No need to make it overly artsy or profound.
No matter how others see him, he has always been one of the directors who knows best how to make urban comedy... There is always something in Dayyan Eng's films that catches me. This one borrows a fantasy shell, but underneath it is still looking back at youth and telling the story of a big boy who never grew up. Some of the set pieces carry a hint of sex comedy, several bits of imagination are quite funny, and Yan Ni is very beautiful.
Thank you, director Dayyan Eng, for filling in the regrets I had more than ten years ago after watching Waiting Alone. Daniel Wu's cameo, showing up and touching his own abs, is a major highlight. I basically like every performance by Xia Yu and Yan Ni; every gesture feels fully in character. It is such a joy when actors you love can come together in one film. The story feels a little like a Zheng Yuanjie fairy tale I read as a child: a boy has 19 unreliable wishes fulfilled, only to discover what he truly wants. Don't let life screw you over so easily; you have to screw life back! Even the most ordinary life can have great moments.
For a director, works from different periods are also expressions of his attitude toward life and his way of living at the time. Dayyan Eng's three works were completed in his twenties, thirties, and forties, respectively, and they also record the traces of his growth. Everything appears at the most appropriate moment. If he were asked to make Waiting Alone now, or to make Wished twelve years earlier, neither would be the version we see today.
Audiences who like Dayyan Eng's works cannot help being infected by his distinctive film style. Whether it is his surreal mode of expression, his dense and stylized comic dialogue, or his star-studded cast... every new work brings audiences a powerful sense of reality, as well as visual and auditory pleasure. This time Wished once again gives Dayyan Eng's loyal fans, after years of waiting, a fresh and abundant experience: another burst of joy, another round of nonstop laughter, another physical and emotional thrill through the unique charm of Dayyan Eng's film style, and another highly effective, laugh-inducing journey of life.