Dad is Here 爸爸来了
7.0
7.0
The main characters of the film are the bright straight-A student Xiaoxiao and her hapless father Yunfei. Yunfei is no longer young but has achieved nothing in life – his wife divorced him, and now he barely makes ends meet, running a small shop together with friends who are just as unsuccessful. One day Xiaoxiao quarrels with her father, and in some mysterious way their souls swap places – now Yunfei goes off to school, where he quickly changes the image of his daughter as a quiet bookworm, while Xiaoxiao takes charge of her father's life and tries to get his business back on its feet.
No one would argue that originality is hugely important for a film — after all, it's far more interesting both to make and to watch something that hasn't been told before. Yet there are a whole host of practically immortal plots that serve as the foundation for movies with enviable regularity. One such plot is the body-swap story, an almost philosophical parable about how you can only truly understand another person if you literally end up in their body. Dad is Here adds not a single new word to what its numerous predecessors have said, but it plays a familiar tune without hitting almost any false notes.
It's a little strange to see that Dad is Here came out online, bypassing cinemas — comedies, especially family ones, in China in recent years have almost always become box-office hits; suffice it to recall the 2021 fantasy comedy Hi, Mom, which earned more than 800 million dollars. Nevertheless, Dad premiered on the Tencent and iQiyi streaming platforms, which could equally mean that the producers weren't confident in their film, or that the platforms needed a potential hit to attract new subscribers from among those who aren't interested in fantasy and adventure action films, which mostly make up the lineup of today's Chinese online cinemas.
Usually in body-swap films the filmmakers devote quite a lot of time to how the characters get used to their new bodies and their attempts to swap back, but the makers of Dad is Here skip through this part almost on fast-forward. By the tenth minute of the film Yunfei and Xiaoxiao have come to terms with their fate and start a new life. Most likely this is done so as to move as quickly as possible away from the obvious, worn-out gags, without stumbling into vulgarity with smutty jokes about characters of different sexes, and on to what never goes out of date — stories about people and the relationships between them.
The gregarious, ever-cheerful Yunfei in his daughter's body quickly finds common ground with her classmates, wins their respect and draws the attention of the handsomest boy in class to his daughter, while Xiaoxiao tidies up her father's shop, though she ruins his relationships with his friends. But of course this is only the tip of the iceberg — Xiaoxiao has yet to understand what true friendship is and how important it is, while Yunfei comes to realize that being a friend to his daughter isn't enough; he needs to be first and foremost a father, a role model and a stone wall that you can always hide behind.
These are very obvious and by no means new ideas, but in the film they're presented quite briskly and sweetly, and the comedian Zhou Xiao-Ou and the young actress Zuo Teng-Li make a likeable duo. The latter is a graduate of the popular reality show I Am an Actor, which aired on the iQiyi platform; this is her first leading role in a film, and the actress handled it superbly. To be on the safe side, the popular comedian Huang Cai-Lun was invited for the small role of Xiaoxiao's mother's lover — several amusing scenes are connected with him, but his character is completely unnecessary to the plot, and in general it seems he was written into the film at the last moment. In any case, there's no point in taking the film apart piece by piece; as a whole, Dad is Here works very well — it's funny, not stupid and charming enough to overlook a few shortcomings and simply watch a movie that sincerely tries to make you laugh and be moved.
7.0
7.0
