We really love Yifei Liu of Mulan fame that we dug up this 2014 film of hers with no less than Rain as his leading man. Yifei stars here as Xing Lu, a flight attendant at the beginning of the movie and bumps into Xu Chengxun (played by Rain). This was in Vienna and for both characters this was supposed to be just a passing thing until they meet up again in Shanghai.
Xing left her job and went back to Shanghai to find her rich boyfriend being wed at a hotel. She was so heartbroken that she tried to kill herself by jumping off an apartment building. It so happened that Xu was passing along and saw her at the top. He went up and tried to reason with her but both fell into an airbag that the Fire Department had set up below.
Both then started a friendship and Xu was constantly visiting Xing at her coffee shop. Xing then found out that Xu is an artist and she loved his work. Xu was barely scratching a living and it was Xing who gave him inspiration in his next paintings. All was going well until Xu proposes marriage to Xing of which she declined. Not only that she declined, Xu then later found her in a hotel with her rich ex-boyfriend who earlier got married in the film. This was devastating to Xu so he went back to his mother, who was uber rich. Xu is an heir to a vast rich empire and did not share the same view with his mother and he lived off his own means, leaving his studies in London to pursue art in Vienna. With Xing gone, thinking that greed came upon her, he accepts his life of fame and fortune.
In one of his exhibits, he instructs to sell the paintings for cheap but some gallery in Vienna bought it for 15 Million (Yuan or Dollars we don't know). Xu was angered by this considering he just want to sell the paintings for cheap, he went to Vienna to find the buyer, and he found Xing.
Xu still hated Xing and he said some harsh words to her, not knowing it was her who bought the paintings. While he raced away from Xing, she followed her running. Xu later realized that he still loves her went back to an empty apartment, to find his paintings neatly tucked away in the corner. Meanwhile Xing was held up while trying to catch Xu, and was stabbed. Even with the wound, she ran to find Xu only to be bumped by Xu's car throwing her into a river. She was taken to the hospital and she survived. Xu then returns all the fame and fortune to her mom just to be with Xing in the end.
First off, we had reservations on the performance of Yifei after seeing her in So Young 2 (Never Gone), even though we really loved her. We also have seen her in Forbidden Kingdom and the Four franchise. Her acting in So Young and in some of those mentioned wasn't that endearing enough for us that she might do the same here in For Love or Money. We were wrong. Although some critics (yes we read some of them) didn't like this film, they may be right but somehow we disagreed. We are are hopeful romantics here and we really love Yifei's performance here. So much so we think this was her best performance ever. She cried a lot here and her eyes were filled with emotions that we were taken by these scenes. Best acting for her as of yet here in this movie.
Rain as Xu Chengxun, the rich heir who abhors his fortune delivered a fine performance as well. He tried crying also as much as Yifei, but we don't like crying, it didn't set well with us but in scenes where he tries to impress Xing, there we can feel that she loved her very much. Great job these two gave us and almost, yes almost, we can see a chemistry between the two in this film. We say almost because Yifei for us has to improve her role as a "lover", yes we like her crying, but some scenes require an amorous approach to a scene. Rain had no problem in this department, only the crying part. So they complement each other in this film. LOL.
We would like also to note the decent performance of Joan Chen as Xu's rich and manipulative mother. She really is great playing the villain of sorts and this one is easy for her.
Storywise its your age old rich guy pretending to be poor to find his love, while poor girl is bought off by the rich mother hoping to give frustration to the rich son who pretends to be poor. Nothing new here and almost you can see where the story will lead you. We hope there were some surprises but nothing jumped out from nowhere to interest us. Thanks to the story telling and of the actors, we have a good film if you ask us.
The story or script was well written but one might be confused at the first an hour and 10 minutes of the movie. There were some flashbacks, side stories that muddle the story, and that only at this point we really knew what was happening. It is as if you can watch the first 15 minutes then skip to that point and you might be able to catch up to the story without missing a beat. Anyway, it was still a good watch the first part, but keep your emotions in check as you might want to fast forward it a bit. Which we did in our first time watching it.
As of this writing, the full movie is shown on YouTube and just click on the thumbnail below.
