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• ↓ Derek Elley on Chinese cinema. Reviews, people, topics. Served straight.
• ↓ A Table for Two
• ↓ 拼桌
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"Shanghai, 2024. Zhang Jiayi (Jiang Shuying) is a book editor at small publishing company Yueke Culture who lives with her Shanghainese widowed mother (Wu Mian) and maternal grandmother (Wang Caiping); Lu Shigu (Wang Chuanjun) is a computer programmer who’s fed up with his job and lives with his mother (Liu Jia), who’s recently retired. Both appreciate good food and use the same small restaurant, Xinxin, for lunch. Unknown to each other, they both have Hunanese origins through the paternal side of their families. One day they share a table in Xinxin because of lack of space, but only exchange a few words. Soon afterwards the same happens again, but again they only exchange a few words. Zhang Jiayi is being pushed by her boss, Pang Weiwei (Fu Shou’er), to sign up well-known author Lin Tong (Tian Xiaojie) who is being evasive. She finally visits his flat, where Lin Tong says her company is purely exploitative; but they finally bond over some fragrant food he’s cooking. Zhang Jiayi and Lu Shigu start sending each other food pictures and eventually share a table by design, though conversation is minimal. Their relationship develops from there, always centred on food (lunches, late-night snacks) and gently encouraged by him. Zhang Jiayi has a boyfriend, videographer Ye Fan (Zheng Yunlong), but he’s obsessed with work and always letting her down. Meanwhile, Zhang Jiayi’s cynical work colleague, Sansan (Li Xueqin), has become obsessed by an online male friend known as “Bear”. During a dinner with Lu Shigu, Zhang Jiayi gets a call from Ye Fan, who later comes round to her flat and offhandedly proposes with a ring that doesn’t even fit her. On another occasion, Sansan accompanies Zhang Jiayi to a baseball workout in a gym by Ye Fan and his friends, among whom is Lu Shigu. Sansan falls for Lu Shigu, not knowing Zhang Jiayi already knows him; and at a group dinner afterwards, Lu Shigu and Zhang Jiayi still don’t acknowledge the fact. To Zhang Jiayi’s surprise, Ye Fan then announces that they are engaged and she will be accompanying him to Beijing where he has got a job with a video company. She later tells him she’s upset by his behaviour and he goes on his own to Beijing. One night, walking back drunk after a cancelled party, Zhang Jiayi and Sansan chance upon their boss eating alone in a restaurant. They join her and the three end up dancing together. Zhang Jiayi and Lu Shigu meet again by pure chance – though because of food – but later seem to go their separate ways."

"Very little actually happens in A Table for Two 拼桌 but it doesn’t really matter, as this relaxed, very Shanghai movie, shot in the city’s streets and small eateries, has enough charm to carry itself through 90-odd minutes. This gentle reflection on life and relationships is the first feature by writer-director Wu Jing 吴靖, a graduate of Beijing’s Communication University of China who worked for four years (2009-13) at the Beijing Broadway Cinematheque and since 2020 has worked on the production side of a handful of TVDs and films. They include small-screen drama My Way 第二次拥抱 (2022), centred on four young working mothers, on which she was one of six writers in addition to director Yin Lichuan 尹丽川, and the feature Hovering Blade 彷徨之刀 (2024), a tough crime/revenge drama directed by Chen Zhuo 陈卓. Modestly budgeted and shot quite rapidly in 20 days, during Oct-Nov 2023, Table was finally released this spring, taking a tiny RMB7.8 million."

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Derek Elley on Chinese cinema. Reviews, people, topics. Served straight.

A Table for Two

拼桌