They're calling it his best film ever: Feng Xiaogang's `Cell Phone' tackles the impact of new technology on modern relationships. Michelle Qiao reviews the movie and considers the social implications.

The innocuous ``call register'' feature on a cell phone is the hot button at the heart of a new-technology love triangle in director Feng Xiaogang's latest New Year's film, ``Cell Phone.''

Popular TV host Yan Shouyi (Ge You) has it all: A great job, a loyal wife and a gorgeous young lover. But it all begins unraveling when the ``call register'' feature on his phone is activated. ``Cell Phone''-- like ``You've Got Mail,'' the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie about a relationship built on e-mail -- is part romance, part social commentary on the impact of new communications tools on relationships. With more than 200 million registers, China is the world's largest user of mobile phone. The communications tool has impacted more relationships in the country than any other is.

``The cell phone has changed the way we communicate,'' says Feng, the director. ``That's why I made this film.~'' China's movie buffs agree, sometimes guiltily, that in ``Cell Phone,'' art imitates life. ``The film is a reflection of reality. I have to admit, I sometimes lie on a cell phone,'' says Ding Ran, a newlywed 26-year-old salesman. ``It's hard to lie face to face -- it's much easier on a cell phone.'' Work commitments mean that Ding and his wife live in two different cities, and just like a character in the movie, his wife checks up on him via his cell phone -- a practice to which Ding takes exception.

``Even in a marriage, there should be limits,'' he grumbles. Feng has crafted a film that allows him to explore the serious topic of modern relationships -- and to display his whimsical sense of humor. The director has added a vignette at the beginning and end of the film that almost steals the show. In a foreshadowing of the movie's events, university professor Fei Mo's (Zhang Guoli) impending affair is discovered by his wife via his cell phone, prompting one of the movie's most memorable monologues: ``We have slept together for 20 years -- there's nothing wrong, it's just aesthetic boredom.

The whole thing makes one long for the days of the agricultural society, when transportation and communication were still undeveloped. Men could spend years in the capital, preparing for the imperial exams. When they returned home to the countryside, they could say anything to their wives. But now, we're so close it's suffocating.'' Writer Liu Zhenyun, from whose novel of the same name the movie is adapted and who also wrote the script, is quick to point out that extramarital affairs are not the exclusive preserve of straying husbands. ``There's been a lot of press about wives checking their husbands' cell phones after seeing this film,'' he says. ``But I suggest husbands check their wives' phones as well.''

A big part of the reason that this movie works is because director and scriptwriter worked almost as one. Liu wrote the script when he and Feng were living on a horse farm in suburban Beijing, ``where it snows four months a year,'' and the director obviously had his input. Feng insists that reading the novel is the key to fully appreciating the movie, while Liu says of his director, ``Feng has a fantastic imagination. He has a different view of the world and he has a message.

Making a film just for the sake of making a film misses the point -- do that, and you miss out on the fun of this work! '' The cast, all of whom are fixtures in Feng's films, include popular mainland actor Ge You, veteran TV director and actor Zhang Guoli and actress Xu Fan, who is also Feng's wife. The famously bald Ge wears a wig in his portrayal of a straight-talking talk show host who can't sustain that frankness in his personal life.

Ge's performance as the philandering husband is so convincing that Feng feels it is necessary to protect the reputation of his star: ``He is a very careful, prudent man and a good husband. I can't imagine him having affairs. He's a completely different character onscreen -- an irreplaceable actor.'' ``Cell Phone'' is Feng's best film, says Huang Feijue, editor of Shanghai Times, a local weekly newspaper. However, at the same time, he also says that it's not Feng's most entertaining one.

``The movie shows the strong conflict between men and women and the fault lines of a marriage. It make me feel as if I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time,'' says Huang. And that's just fine with Feng. ``Yes, everybody loves a comedy, but no one wants to see the same type of comedy all the time,'' chuckles Feng. ``They'll be `aesthetically tired' as well. Pickled vegetables are tastier after three meals of abalone.'' The key to a successful film, says Feng, is finding the pulse of the audience and exploring feelings that haven't been plumbed yet by others. Trying to get into someone else's skin doesn't work for him, either: ``I don't want to live in some poor area for three months,'' he says. ``That manmade experience isn't authentic. Instead, I like to create things that I'm familiar with.

My sister and brother-in-law are both laid-off workers. And my life is no different from any other ordinary Beijing resident.'' He is confident of the box office success of ``Cell Phone'' because ``it's not about cell phones, but people -- the lives of people who live in an era of changing technology,'' Feng says. ``Some will enjoy the movie on its own merits, some will be alarmed. My goal is to touch everyone with this film.'' Just as a lone cell phone, ringing in a darkened movie theater, reaches everyone. New Year's films Director Feng Xiaogang began making his series of ``hesui pian,'' or New Year's films, in 1997 with ``Part A Part B,'' followed by ``Be There or Be Square'' in 1998 and ``Sorry, Baby'' (1999) and ``Big Shot's Funeral'' (2001).

The movies are released to coincide with ``golden season'' -- Christmas, New Year and the Chinese Lunar New Year, when consumers spend more on leisure activities and culture. The box office success of Feng's New Year's movies established his reputation as a popular commercial film and comedy director, best known for his sense of humor and witty satire.

On average, one of Feng's New Year's films brings in more than 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) in box office. Feng did not make a New Year's movie in 2000, and that year, the five Chinese films that ran during the period brought in box office receipts of only 3.2 million yuan in total. Unlike directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, who make award-winning, artistic films, Feng has said that his goal is simply to entertain the biggest audience he can reach. According to Feng, the audience is the only award he needs.

``I would never make a movie to win an award,'' he says disdainfully. For this, grateful fans call him ``a lonely beautiful flower in the barren soil of the Chinese film industry,'' but the director is the first to admit that for all its box office success, the New Year's film has its limitations.

The Chinese name for ``Big Shot's Funeral,'' for instance, had to be changed to ``Big Shot,'' since ``funeral'' was not suitably auspicious for the festival, and the original black-and-white film posters had to be changed to red. Ironically, the ``Godfather of the Chinese New Year's Films'' refuses to take credit for it. ``I didn't create it. The concept of the New Year's film is a commercial opportunity created by producers and film investors. For the thousandth time, I'm making films, not just `hesui pian'.'' It seems that the good director, in the words of William Shakespeare, ``doth protest too much.''

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