52 Films by Women Vol 8. 18. Yolo (Director: Jia Ling)

Still courtesy of Sony Pictures (UK)

Until Barbie, the most financially successful film directed by a woman was Hi, Mom, the feature debut of writer-director-star Jia Ling, which, if Chinese box office figures are to be believed – and Box Office Mojo stopped endorsing them – grossed $841.7 million, dominating the 2021 Chinese Spring Festival holiday period. Three years later, Ling is back, with Yolo, loosely inspired by Masaharu Take’s 2014 film, 100 Yen Love, about a woman in her thirties who takes up boxing. Yolo requires Ling to physically transform herself into a competent-looking boxer. In the dazzling finale, Ling’s character Du Le Ying, goes three rounds with a professional, the second round of which is filmed in a continuous two-minute shot (in women’s boxing, rounds last two not three minutes). You don’t want her to win so much as survive.

Yolo performed impressively at the Chinese box office, grossing $479.4 million, after opening in February 2024. It did less well in the US and UK, but only because the market for Chinese films is less developed – Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean films have performed better, promoted around auteurs rather than stars. Yolo also inspired Chinese women to take up boxing as a means to lose weight, though as one commentator suggested, this might be just a fad.

Ling’s popular touch transcends cultural barriers. Her film moved me unexpectedly. There is a montage towards the end when we see a series of previously withheld scenes, including Le Ying attending the wedding of her former best friend and a suicide attempt, right before the transformed Le Ying makes her way to the ring, given the thumbs up by a reflection of her overweight former self. Her walk to the ring is drawn out. In a sense, it is Le Ying’s victory lap, a celebration of her achievement. Before then, there are the knock backs.

In the beginning, her character is the family joke. Le Ying is introduced through her big toe reaching towards a remote control while she is lying under a duvet. She is so lazy that she won’t bend her body to reach for it. Her cousin, Doudou (Yang Zi) wants to feature her in a TV series that she is working on called ‘Find Yourself’, in which directionless young people are given life advice by a poet-philosopher (male) and a psychiatrist (female), who naturally don’t agree. Le Ying ignores the camera as she is filmed. Her unmarried sister, Ledan (Zhang Xiaofei) also wants something from her, namely her apartment. Her young daughter can only qualify for schooling if her mother has an address, and this requires Le Ying to move out. Ledan prepares a meal for her listless sister, who surprises her by agreeing straight away. Nevertheless, they still fight, or rather Ledan attacks her, and Le Ying assumes a defensive crouch, Ledan consumed by resentment. It is something of an omission that this tension isn’t discussed further.

Le Ying has both a best friend (Li Xueqin) and a boyfriend (Qiao Shan). She invites them both for a meal to update them. The gag is that as they take successive phone calls, they are both in the same room together, agreeing, ‘we have to tell her.’ In a café, her boyfriend says he has something to say. Her best friend excuses herself to go to the bathroom. ‘No, you can stay,’ Le Ying tells her. Her boyfriend explains that he has met someone else. Le Ying looks at his phone and sees a photo of her best friend. They explain they are getting married. ‘I need you to come to the wedding,’ her best friend tells her. ‘Otherwise they will think I am a bad person.’ Le Ying walks away.

Still courtesy of Sony Pictures (UK)

The credit sequence is a series of tracking shots as Le Ying comfort eats her way through her neighbourhood, passing an exercise group and a man being told his fortune. She passes a gym and ends up at a café-bar, where she eventually finds work. Before then is the small matter of finding somewhere to live. ‘400 for the deposit and 600 for rent,’ an agent tells her as he shows her a modest, if compact and slightly run-down apartment. ‘Can’t you make it cheaper?’ ‘How about 200 for the deposit and 800 for the rent?’ Having initially refused her mother’s offer of money, Le Ying is surprised to see it transferred into her account, which allows her to take the apartment. Then there is the matter of finding a job. At the café bar she passed earlier, she is offered a job – 1,500 a month plus food. A waitress warns her about the male staff, who can be presumptuous. At night, the bar-café is buzzing. For some reason, the English subtitles suggest that customers order a dozen beers, when Le Ying can barely carry four. After work, the manager asks Le Ying to fetch cigarettes from his car. While sitting in the driver’s seat, she sees Hao Kun (Lei Jiayin) a boxer from the gym a few doors down, urinating against the wall. In trying to open the glove compartment, Le Ying switches on the windscreen wipers, followed by the headlights that illuminate Hao Kun at a point when he would rather be unseen. He comes over. Le Ying asks for his help, but he can’t switch off the headlights, thanks to the car’s somewhat temperamental wiring. After he leaves, Le Ying discovers that he has left his boxing gloves behind, which provides a reason for her to visit the boxing gym.

More comedy ensues in which the receptionist tries to get Le Ying to purchase a gym membership as Le Ying returns Hao Kun’s gloves. They connect through social media (Wei Bo), though a running joke is that Le Ying’s life is so dull that she has nothing to post. ‘I don’t post moments,’ Le Ying tells her female colleague.

Hao Kun invites her to the park, a pretext to being sold a gym membership as Le Ying’s colleague advises her. Hao Kun’s heart isn’t in selling. We see that he is the better boxer than a younger, more charismatic colleague, who sells gym memberships but then gets into trouble with a female member’s husband. The gym owner wants the younger colleague to represent the gym in a contest, awarding a bout to him, even though Hao Kun excelled in the ring. The broad comedy elicited modest chuckles from a genuinely receptive audience.

Le Ying is supportive of Hao Kun’s ambition and joins the gym. Hao Kun represents the gym in a contest but then is offered a bribe to take a dive. Unexpectedly, Hao Kun is knocked out in the first round. The man who tried to bribe him remarks that he shouldn’t have bothered.

Throughout these scenes Le Ying remains overweight. Her cousin, Doudou, gets in touch and begs Le Ying to appear on her show. ‘They liked the footage,’ she explains. There is a semi-comical exchange involving Doudou’s electric bike, which needs charging. In the end, Le Ying agrees to her cousin’s request.

The recording of the show is a disaster, with the disapproving psychiatrist giving Le Ying a hard time. Doudou feeds Le Ying answers through an earpiece when she appears stuck for words, but the fact is that Le Ying has a job. She does not need to find herself. The footage shot at the film’s opening betrays Le Ying and she faints, though as we see the montage much later, that’s what she was told to do. There is an extended exterior long shot during which Le Ying climbs multiple sets of stairs to reach her apartment. Even before she goes inside, she disappears from view as if absorbed into the building, old and big and not very attractive.

It is then that Le Ying takes her training seriously, Jia Ling setting scenes to Bill Conti’s Rocky theme (‘Gonna Fly Now’). The film isn’t particularly subtle. Le Ying gets progressively leaner and fitter, convincing the gym owner to let her represent the gym in a competition, which she does so.

‘Don’t you want to win some time?’ Le Ying asks Hao Kun, during his doubting moments. He doesn’t reply. Nevertheless, Le Ying gives herself a shot. The opening of the film is shown from Le Ying’s point of view as she traverses corridors backstage on her way to the ring. The climax repeats this scene, though this time we see the fully-transformed Le Ying.

Still courtesy of Sony Pictures (UK)

The boxing climax is visceral and hard to watch, not because it is excessive graphic, rather we are aware of Le Ying’s vulnerability. The use of the Rocky theme isn’t a mere throwaway pop culture reference. It sets up the ending – and the message of the film – proper.

The credits include behind-the-scenes footage and rehearsals of the walk to the ring with Jia Ling looking more fit during each successive rehearsal. She draws a square and berates her lack of artistic ability, showing us drawings of scenes from Hi, Mom. She says that she dreams of posing with her hair fully down, like a glamour model; she achieves this.  Crew members applaud ‘director Ling’ and so do we.

The very end of the film features Hao Kun congratulating Le Ying on her performance; he saw her social media. However, Le Ying chooses to go her own way. Jia Ling doesn’t prime the audience for a romance. However, she does portray self-respect.  

National cinemas project an image of the country that perpetuate a myth, whether ‘father knows best’ as in French cinema, or the underdog having his day as in British films. In Chinese cinema, there is no overt reference to the state and its role in society, rather an emphasis on the importance of family and pride. Le Ying becomes proud of herself. We are unsure where this will take her – surely not back to the café-bar – but that’s not the point. She can realise her potential, and so, the film says to us – female and male alike – can we.

 

Reviewed at Cineworld Leicester Square, Super-screen, Central London, Friday 5 April 2024, 16:50 screening; also Cineworld Leicester Square, Screen Five, Tuesday 9 April 2024, 19:30 screening