Director: Huang Zhouhang
Writer: Huang Zhouhang
Cast: Mo Li-ssu, Wu P’eng, Hsing I-han
Running time: 29mins
Traditional weddings are heralded for their allegedly wholesome celebration of familial love. They are presented as a rare opportunity to bring a couple’s nearest and dearest together, and take vows of dedication and trust in front of that sacred gathering.
In practice, however, many weddings are far from the fairytale façade they hope to put on. Just beneath that harmonious veneer of smiling portraits, gushing speeches, floral arrangements and flowing gowns, more often than not there is also a simmering lake of petty resentment and pent-up frustration, ready to bubble up through the cracks as soon as the bar opens at the reception.
Of course, the banal antipathies people inevitably develop when living with anyone over time are ideally outweighed by the happy memories they also build. But a wedding can expose those toxic and unspoken dislikes, because it throws a new person – and their family – into that mix. Throw a child armed with a camcorder into the equation, and it seems like you have a recipe for carnage.
When we first meet the cast of Day In, Day Out, it is through the lens of a digital camera wielded by Ming, the young nephew of the groom. In the opening seconds, we are treated to a gold-mine of gossip – including the groom’s mother and aunt sniping at his cheapness, having recycling his suit from his doomed first marriage; while also suggesting the bride is somehow out of line for insisting that he buy a new one.
When the pair belatedly snap at Ming not to film them, we exit this viewpoint to observe the youngster through the much more polished lens of director of photography Tony Gu. Ming (played by the excellent Wu P’eng) is grinning from ear to ear, in the knowledge he is doing something he ought not to, but now has enough material to avoid a more serious telling off.
When Uncle Leung (Mo Li-ssu), the surly groom, finally shows up to proceedings, it is also through Ming’s eyes that we see something is clearly wrong. He pushes past his nephew and into a quiet backroom, where red envelopes have been left piled on a table. His fascination with the money which the families have set aside for the bride on her big day is conspicuous, as is his sudden need to keep Ming with him when he realises his nephew has witnessed it.
The pair then head to the tailor, where he dropped off his old suit to get a refresh. Desperately he demands the suit back without alteration, but the straight-faced tailor (Wen Tu-ling) unflinchingly tells him, “It is already cut up”, and so it is too late for a refund now. When Leung threatens the unassuming old man with vandalising his store with red spray paint, the tailor calmly walks outside, offers him a cigarette, then takes the can and lighter, and demonstrates how to turn them into an impromptu flame-thrower. Wen Tu-ling’s relentless, deadpan calm means this utter castration of his younger, fitter counterpart is especially funny – and there are a number of other moments which rival (but never surpass) this excellent comedic beat.
While Leung might still be big enough to domineer his nephew, the relationship shifts as it becomes increasingly clear how much of a loser Leung is. He clearly owes some very bad people some money, but it also becomes apparent the amount is not the kind that might usually make for compelling stakes. The amount it takes to tailor the suit would have been enough, it seems.
Desperate to avoid a terrible fate, assuming his legs are set to get broken over a couple-of-hundred-quid, he desperately agrees to help out in a series of crimes which have much greater severity, and are clearly ‘worth’ much more than his debt. This culminates in him agreeing to try and traffic a child into the criminal underworld – and enlisting his nephew to unwittingly doing some of the work. When the plan is discovered, this leads to a sequence of mildly amusing hide-and-seek, where the children spy on the frantic Leung through the camcorder. But there is always an awkward feeling behind whatever laughs come from it.
Tonally, this turn doesn’t really fit with the rest of the film, which had until this point been about familial gripes and petty squabbles. It is especially ill-fitting, because nobody ever points out just how much of a fool Leung is being taken for, or how despicable his actions are becoming. As the voice of reason uncovering the plot, Ming does at least lambast his uncle into setting things right. But more could have been made of this moment, seriously and comedically.
At the same time, this storyline also means there is no time to tie up any of the other intrigue involved in the wedding. Suggestions that Leung’s family are ashamed of his wife-to-be never get any closure, and there is no point at which she has the chance to comment on the kind of man she appears to be marrying, or the family she is marrying into. All of that might seem trivial in comparison to the narrowly avoided horrors of Leung’s other plans – but if that is the case then at least give the storylines space to play out together, and for that kind of commentary to come up. There is a wealth of opportunities for either comic or strait-laced discussions to take place throughout this movie, and it feels like many of them are wasted.
Perhaps the biggest shame of all is the way the film abandons what could have been a compelling framing device, though. The opening sequence show potential for a kind of found-footage/mockumentary format I have never encountered before, in which a child who would normally be voiceless and powerless – expected to suffer through the boredom of marriage ceremonies and the inane chatter of the reception silently – gets to seize the narrative and shape the memories of this big happy sham of a day with the camera supposed to maintain a myriad of lies about familial bliss. As nice as Tony Gu’s cinematography is, it’s not half as interesting as that would have been.
There is plenty to like about Day In, Day Out. There are some charming, funny moments, and a changing relationship dynamic between a young boy and his loser of an uncle to keep the audience engaged throughout its half-hour run-time. But there are tonal missteps and no concerted effort to tie disparate narratives together, in a way that means we are only really glimpsing shards of unlived potential here.