Ta Ta Mi (2023)

Maybe it's for the best that this is hard to find.

I've been looking for a way to watch this movie for months, being a fan of Xu Ruohan. I finally found it on YouTube, albeit with no English subtitles. That said, I have 90% comprehension of spoken Mandarin and have watched raws before so I was excited to finally find a way to watch this movie.

Well. I am no longer excited.

The scant handful of positives:
- Xu Ruohan. I still love her. She's still cute and talented and I'm still looking forward to seeing much more from her.
- The music was decent.
- The cinematography was adequate, no complaints.

Now for the trash fire that's everything else, starting with a plot summary because who the hell thought this plot was a good idea:
The overarching moral of this story is missing your chance and not taking what you have for granted. This is fine, but we start with our FL, Xia Mo literally explaining how she tossed the ML, Chu Qiu, into the friend zone and left him there. I think we're supposed to take away that she's fatherless and fears losing her best friend, but mostly she just acts bossy in the high school arc at the beginning and has a lot of words about "people say men and women can't be best friends but we prove them wrong." Bold words from a romance that is telegraphed immediately, plot. Way to show that men and women really can't be just friends.

They add a friend, their buddy Zhang Tian Hao, who then proceeds to spend the rest of his screentime doing nothing but living for his two friends and eventually using his own wedding to set them up (????). I mean, what a friend, but also he literally does nothing but advanced plot points which is some intensely shallow characterization.

As the three of them look towards college, Xia Mo literally takes the other twos college goals and writes in the college she's going to. She then declares, "Chu Qiu is sticking with my forever. Which means Hao is too." Yup, that's the set up.

Off they go to college and the main plot point here is that, on a dare from Hao, Xia Mo and Chu Qiu try to sleep with their boyfriend and girlfriend respectively, winner gets to decide their upcoming trip. And the resolution of that was.... They both decided not to go through with it and she runs over to his room at the hotel where he's almost naked and blurts out that she's pregnant. His girlfriend immediately dumps him and slaps him. Her boyfriend, who she has tied up and left, finds them in the hall and assumes she's been cheating on him so he breaks up with her and slaps Chu Qiu. Then the two "best friends" look at each other and laugh. I'm not sure if this was a great way to show that they're "best friends through thick and thin" and I really feel for their partners who were lied to and tossed away for this joke of a dare.

At the camping trip they end up going on (Hao wins since they both lost and choose camping), Xia Mo gets really drunk and tells Chu Qiu her four big wishes in life.

So now we're on to adulthood and the bulk of the movie.

On Xia Mo's way to her big important (first?) interview, she bumps older hot CEO type Wei Sidong's Bentley with her scooter because she was distracted. This is our 2ML who then creepily chases Xia Mo with such promises as, "if you become my girlfriend you won't owe me this huge debt for the car repair." Classy. She repeatedly turns him down but ends up mightily entangled because he has her working for him (selling wine) to pay her debt.

Meanwhile our ML, who has absolutely no personality at this point other than being FL's ride or die bestie, watches sadly from the sidelines as the creep seems to be wearing Xia Mo down and it seems inevitable that she'll give in (though the audience sees that she keeps saying no). His response to this is to start fulfilling her Four Big Wishes she told him while drunk in college.

He feeds her steak at the beach (it was a homemade dinner, near a pool and their long suffering plot advancing buddy Hao was the server). Then he confesses to her with a heart made of candles. She turns him down, saying it's impossible. I think because they're friends was the excuse but I wasn't trying too hard to understand this part because I was annoyed.

To deal with his heartbreak, he goes to a club with plot device Hao and then drinks alcohol.... Which he's allergic to and can give him anaphylactic shock. A cute girl (new plot device) kisses him/hits on him and he collapses on the floor due to his allergic reaction.

Xia Mo meets him at the hospital and calls him an idiot (true) but then get awkward with new plot device girl shows up. Xia Mo vehemently denies that she's Chu Qiu's girlfriend so new plot device girl starts taking video of her taking responsibility/dibs for the ML. Good job plot, totally not contrived.

Chu Qiu goes to new plot device girl's performance. Then, callback to a really forced plot point early on where Xia Mo's mom has been day trading stocks and hmmm wonder why that was a plot point, oh because now she and her mom are in a lot of debt and Chu Qiu comes running with flowers. Oh but creepy CEO foil shows up first (who could have called this) and he's already paid off all her debts, no problem (yeah I don't know how he found out either). She sobs in relief and he hugs her. Oh and guess who sees it from the other side of the alley. Our ML, duh.

CEO Wei gifts Xia Mo a big surprise: her own fashion studio! Free of charge! All yours, girl! Knock yourself out! Oh but how did he know exactly what her dream was and designed it exactly the way she loves? He's cagey but no sh** Sherlock, Chu Qiu told him all of it and made the designs. Chu Qiu apparently has gone off the grid to find himself or something and no one can get in touch with him. But before he does, he tells his love rival (who he has already decided he lost to) about Xia Mo's third wish: her dream of having her own fashion studio. Everyone clap.

Xia Mo's response is to.... Tell the plot device girl who has had all of five minutes of screen time everything she knows about Chu Qiu's likes and dislikes and tells her to take good care of him (???).

Fast forward 3 years and the movie is almost over (okay now actually clap). Buddy Hao is getting married but why is Xia Mo also suspiciously dressed up in a dress that looks like bridal wear? The voiceover talks about how she's doing well and has a successful career as a fashion designer now and "even Hao is getting married." She walks into the reception/wedding hall and suddenly she is being attacked by slow falling feathers. Oh it turns out that's her fourth wish, to walk down the aisle to her husband getting married while being rained on by white feathers. So of course waiting at the end for her is Chu Qiu. Who has been MIA for 3 years until he could come crash his friend's wedding and make it about him and his "bestie." They look at each other misty eyed and the guests clap (while the background has the names of the actual bride and groom but we know how much they matter here). The end.


I don't have a whole lot to add. Because that was the plot. I'm sorry Xu Ruohan, I hope you get better projects.

One star for XRH, one star for being watchable enough that I didn't just drop it, one star for the music and cinematography, and half a star for the rest of the cast for trying.

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