The New York Asian Film Festival took place between June 29 and July 15 in Manhattan. For more information about the festival and what you missed, click here.
I must be getting soft in my old age.
Aside from the fact that it’s a sweet and charming little movie, there’s no logical explanation for me having enjoyed Dude’s Manual as much as I did.
The fact that I went at all is in its own way a testament to the skill the programmers at the New York Asian Film Festival have accrued over these past 17 years at both film selection and also knowing how to sell them to potential audiences.
I openly concede that the personal appeal of checking out Dude’s Manual came from a certain curiosity about what a raunchy teen comedy from Mainland China might actually look like. It seemed a stretch that their content guidelines would preclude the sort of American Pie-style raunch one would expect from such an endeavor. And there is a bit of that (though perhaps not nearly enough for some tastes), but for all the talk of getting laid, it falls far closer to the She’s All That side of things than, say… Road Trip.
Which is mighty impressive when the film’s lead character earns his nickname from getting publicly caught with a blow-up doll.
Hei Xianyang, a.k.a. Air Pump (Zijian Dong), is the only virgin left among his group of friends, which numbers exactly two: Boshi, a muscledheaded dummy who learned everything he knows from watching porn; and Dakuan, whose solution to every problem is to throw money at it. One of those contrived set pieces so familiar to fans of the genre leads to Air Pump getting entangled with Guan Xin (Elane Zhong), an imperious untouchable of high status. To keep herself from getting dragged down to the same level of social pariah as Air Pump, she concocts an elaborate plan wherein he will seduce the only other woman whom Guan Xin considers her “equal,” a shy piano prodigy named Li Shushu (Jessie Li, muted and lovely).
There will be no cookies awarded for guessing what happens next.
It cannot be stressed enough how much this feels like a fair-to-middling variation of the American teen comedy in the broad strokes. But where Dude’s Manual transcends its inspirations is in its overall warmhearted nature. Through a mix of deft writing and endearing performances, the inherent mean-spiritedness of some of the tropes of the teen comedy feel somewhat mitigated. This is still a movie where the thrust of the plot is still built upon lying and trickery. But it makes a significant difference that the instigator of the fraud is a woman, and that Air Pump’s reluctance to go along with it and confusion as his feelings for Guan Xin deepen never play as anything other than genuine.
Thanks to the performers, it’s a love triangle that has some real zing to it.
And as such, there are no villains here, with the possible exception of Laba, a bespectacled student who essentially acts as a one woman high school tabloid, posting surreptitious photos of the student body on her social media feed. She seems due for some kind of comeuppance, and yet her repeated message ‘Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to get caught doing’ seems to be a sincere warning of sorts.
Which is a curious stance to take considering the fact almost every photo she takes is the result of a comedic misunderstanding.
But really, that’s a small hiccup considering the overall entertainment value of the thing. Dude’s Manual isn’t going to win any awards for originality (though it is the first teen romantic comedy that involves a plane building competition as a major plot point), but for people who are willing to give themselves over to the joy of it all, it’s well worth seeing.
