Chinese Actress-Director Jia Ling’s Record-Breaking Blockbuster

Made-in-China comedy Hi, Mom arrives in Hong Kong cinemas as the second most successful film ever at the Chinese box office, and the most successful directed by a woman. At its centre is writer-director Jia Ling, adapting her own 2016 television comedy series, who also stars as an underachieving teenager transported back to the 1980s, where she befriends her young mother.

The 38-year-old Jia is many things: an accomplished actress, storyteller, and genuinely funny comedienne, but a plausible teenager she is not. So if there is an issue preventing Hi, Mom from being wholly successful, this egregiously narcissistic casting choice is it. Jia’s desire to play the role herself is understandable: the story is fuelled by her own regret at not being present for her mother’s death. But in a film dealing in inexplicable time travel, Jia’s casting remains its least plausible element.

Despite this central stumbling block, Hi, Mom has plenty to offer. The story follows good-for-nothing 18-year-old Xiaoling (Jia Ling), who has caused her long-suffering mum, Huanying (Liu Jia), endless trouble and disappointment. But when Huanying is involved in a fatal traffic accident, Xiaoling drops to her knees and begs for a second chance.

In answer to her prayers, Xiaoling is magically transported from 2001 back to 1981, and the factory where a young Huanying (Zhang Xiaofei) works. Passing herself off as a distant cousin, Xiaoling befriends her mother and, borrowing a page from the Back to the Future playbook, immediately becomes embroiled in her mother’s work and burgeoning love life.

Key to the film’s success is the nostalgia drummed up by its early ’80s setting, a period of sweeping economic reform when working at such a factory was seen as an enviable profession. In one key sequence, Xiaoling helps secure the factory its first television, on which they witness China’s women’s volleyball team beat Japan at the Asia Games – a pivotal event that has been chronicled repeatedly in everything from Peter Chan’s Leap to 2019’s My People, My Country.

Shen Teng and Chen He provide the girls with their potential love interests, but it is Zhang, as the radiant Huanying – and, by extension, the embodiment of China’s promising future – who steals the show. Full credit to Jia, however, who has pulled off a major cinematic victory with Hi, Mom, which she caps with a climactic revelation that will ensure there isn’t a dry eye in the house.