''Breakup Buddies'' is a 2014 Chinese
romantic comedy and
road film directed by
Ning Hao. It stars
Huang Bo and
Xu Zheng as buddies on a wild 3,000-kilometre cross-country journey from
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
to
Dali City (via
Zhangjiajie).
The film premiered at the
2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2014, and was released domestically on September 30, 2014. It grossed over $195 million to become one of the
highest-grossing films in China.
Plot
Womanizer Hao Yi (
Xu Zheng) takes his best friend Geng Hao (
Huang Bo) on a road trip to
Dali City in Yunnan — China's unofficial capital of one-night stands — to help him recover from a devastating divorce. Years before, Kang Xiaoyu (
Yuan Quan) had traversed the same route to Dali where she met her future husband.
Cast
*
Huang Bo as Geng Hao
*
Xu Zheng as Hao Yi
*
Yuan Quan as Kang Xiaoyu
*
Zhou Dongyu as Zhou Lijuan, a.k.a. "Christina"
*Tao Hui as Avatar girl
*Yue Xiaojun as an innkeeper
*
Shen Teng as a bar owner
*Zhang Li as a Si Qing
*
Jiao Junyan as Xiao Bei
*
Ma Su as Shasha
*Liu Meihan
*
Xiong Naijin as Kang Xiaoyu's best friend
*Liu Yiwei as a cop
*Wang Yanhui as a crime boss
*
Lei Jiayin as a gangster
*Yong Mengting as a cosplay girl
*Liang Hao as Li Maomao, Zhou Lijuan's boyfriend
*
Guo Tao as Kang Xiaoyu's attorney (cameo)
*
Li Chen as Kang Xiaoyu's new lover (cameo)
*
Xia Yu as Kang Xiaoyu's ex (cameo)
Review
Derek Elley of
Film Business Asia
''Film Business Asia'' was a film trade magazine based in Hong Kong. The magazine was created in 2010 by Patrick Frater, former journalist for '' Variety'', ''The Hollywood Reporter'', and ''Screen International'' and Stephen Cremin, co-founder o ...
gave ''Breakup Buddies'' a 7 out of 10, calling it "Ning Hao's maturest film so far" and praising the performances as "strong".
Box office
The film grossed
¥1.16971 billion at the Chinese box office
and a total of US$195.3 million internationally.
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
s Phil Hoad mentioning the film as one of "a few, giant, isolated local hits".
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Breakup Buddies
2010s Mandarin-language films
2014 films
Chinese comedy-drama films
Chinese road movies
Films directed by Ning Hao
Films scored by Nathan Wang
Films set in Beijing
Films set in Hunan
Films set in Yunnan
Films shot in Beijing
Films shot in Hunan
Films shot in Yunnan
IMAX films