Da Peng Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Honey Money Phony,’ starring Gia Jin, Sunny Sun, Li Xueqin, Wang Hao, David Wang, Ada Liu and Song Muzi

January 6, 2025

by Carla Hay

Gia Jin and Sunny Sun in “Honey Money Phony” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

Directed by Da Peng

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Aoo Kang, China, the comedy film “Honey Money Phony” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An employee from an insurance company teams up with con artists to get back the money that her ex-boyfriend stole from her.

Culture Audience: “Honey Money Phony” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and comedies that are intentionally silly but might annoy some viewers expecting a more entertaining movie.

Pictured clockwise from left: Sunny Sun, Li Xueqin, David Wang and Gia Jin in “Honey Money Phony” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“Honey Money Phony” is a lightweight comedy that falls short of its potential. The story (about people trying to retrieve stolen money from a con artist) gets convoluted and dull very quickly. The performances are adequate while the plot spirals into folly. The movie is intentionally absurdist, but the movie has an uneven tone of being overly sappy while attempting to be edgy. It’s a combination that just doesn’t work for this film.

Directed by Da Peng and written by Su Biao, “Honey Money Phony” (which takes place in the fictional city of Aoo Kang, China) has a simple concept that becomes stretched out and muddled by a series of sloppily staged shenanigans. The main characters are introduced in a somewhat jumbled way. Other characters with smaller roles come in and out of the story and end up being quite useless to the plot. “Honey Money Phony” isn’t exactly fun to watch, unless you think it’s fun to watch characters repeatedly make fools out of themselves in their bungled attempts to do whatever they’re doing in incoherent scenes.

The protagonist of “Honey Money Phony” is Lin Quinlang (played by Gia Jin), a 29-year-old woman who works as an insurance company employee. Quinlang is in debt for about ¥200,000 (which is a little more than $27,000 in U.S. dollars in the mid-2020s) because an ex-boyfriend named Zhang Zi Jun (played by Wang Hao) scammed her out of this money. A flashback shows that Jun lied to her and told her that he lost all of his college tuition money. Quinlang took out a ¥200,000 loan and gave the money to Jun, who then promptly broke up with her and disappeared from her life.

An early montage in the film shows that in addition to her main job at the insurance company, Quinlang has “side hustle” gigs as a waitress, flyer distributor, dog walker and being a social media personality called the Frugal Fairy, who gives advice on how to save money. In voiceover narration, Quinlang says that she doesn’t make enough money from her Frugal Fairy videos to cover the fees charged for her to be a member of the social media platform where she posts the videos.

Quinlang’s closest friend is Dong Xiaohui (played by Li Xueqin), a former co-worker at the insurance company. The movie has a rushed explanation that in the recent past, Xiaohui got caught embezzling money from the insurance company and was fired. Xiaohui now has to pay back the money that she owes from the embezzlement.

And the way that Xiaohui is getting money is by continuing to commit fraud. Her scam is pretending to be a blind woman, walking out on a street in front of car, and falling down, in order to fool the driver into thinking that the car hit her. Xiaohui even carries fake blood with her to quickly put on herself before the driver gets out of the car to see if she is hurt. As part of the scam, Xiaohui persuades the driver (who is usually shocked and nervous) to give her money to get “medical treatment” and so she won’t report this “accident.”

“Honey Money Phony” has a very off-putting way in how it makes Xiaohui’s scamming look acceptable, like it’s all one big joke. There’s no good reason for why the movie has this attitude that Xiaohui can be excused for her scamming, but anyone who scams Quinlang is “wrong” and should be punished. It’s all very hypocritical and stupid.

One day, Quinlang becomes the victim of another scam in a poorly staged scenario that looks very unrealistic in the movie. Quinlang gets a phone call from a man claiming to work for the company where she posts her social media videos. The caller tells Quinlang that her social media account is suspended because she put her personal banking information online so viewers could make direct deposits to her account.

When Quinlang says that this is a common practice for social media influencers, the caller says it’s still against the company policy. The caller than says that Quinlang can fix the problem by paying a fine and her social media account will be reactivated. The man gives her an account number where she can transfer the money to pay the fine. Quinlang doesn’t actually check to see if her account is suspended. She just takes this stranger’s word for it. How idiotic is that?

Quinlang transfers the money and immediately regrets it. She rushes over to a bank, where a friend works, and asks the friend to look up the name of the person who owns the account while Quinlang still has the caller on the phone. The friend tells her the account is owned by someone named Ouyang Hui (played by Sunny Sun), who is surprised that Quinlang found out his identity so quickly. An angry Quinlang threatens to expose him.

But in this ridiculous movie, Quinlang ends up telling Hui about how she was scammed out of ¥200,000 by her ex-boyfriend Jun. Hui makes a deal with Quinlang that he will return her money for the “suspension fine” fraud, and he will help her get her money back from Jun if she doesn’t report Hui to the authorities. It should come as no surprise that Quinlang and Hui become romantically attracted to each other, although the cast members playing these characters don’t have believable romantic chemistry with each other.

Two other people eventually join this plot to get the money back from Jun: Quinlang’s friend Xiaohui; Hui’s uncle Bai Shitong (played by David Wang), who is Hui’s con-artist “mentor”; and Hai Ou (played by Ada Liu), another victim conned by Jun. Because Jun is a ladies’ man who seduces women out of their money, you can easily guess what kind of setup will happen, since Jun has never met Xiaohui before. Someone named Frank (played by Song Muzi) is also part of the story.

“Honey Money Phony” gets distracted with some nonsensical sublots that are supposed to be hilarious but quickly grow tiresome. There’s a running joke that Quinlang and Hui keep encountering a weird photographer (played by Yi Yunhe), who has salivary glands that are so over-active, he drenches people in saliva whenever he talks to them. By the end of a conversation with him, people literally look like they’ve been dunked in a swimming pool.

This over-exaggerated sight gag would be funnier if “Honey Money Phony” went full-tilt into slapstick comedy. But the movie keeps going back into sob story territory when it tells more information about Quinlang and Hui. Quinlang says she moved to Aoo Kang to start fresh after being fired from her previous job for reporting the boss who sexually harassed her. A flashback shows that when she met Jun at a tennis court, he offered to help her with legal problems that she had because she broke a non-compete clause in the contract she had with a previous job.

Hui also has a backstory that is supposed to make him look more sympathetic. It has to do with Hui being an illegitimate child whose father (played by Xiao Ai, in a brief flashback) abandoned Hui when Hui was a child. Shitong is supposed to be Hui’s uncle, but the movie has a repetitive off-kilter joke that Quinlang somehow thinks that Hui and Shitong are lovers. “Honey Money Phony” is mostly goofy, but throwing in incest jokes just seems jarringly out-of-place. It’s an example of how the movie can’t decide if it wants to be edgy or tender.

The cast members seem to be doing the best that they can with a screenplay and direction that aren’t very good. It might be hard for some viewers to relate to Quinlang because she’s so gullible when it comes to being scammed out of her money—even though insurance company workers are trained on how to spot scams, and Quinlang gives financial advice as a social media “influencer.” One of the better performances in the cast comes from Li, who has skilled comedic timing in her role as Xiaohui, although this character is fairly unlikable in how she’s a con artist too.

“Honey Money Phony” overstays its welcome with two separate epilogues. In one of these epilogues, Richie Ren has a cameo as himself in a concert scene that looks very hokey. By the time the second epilogue rolls around, most viewers will just want the film to end once and for all. And unfortunately, “Honey Money Phony” is the type of disappointing movie that is easily forgotten not long after seeing it.

CMC Pictures released “Honey Money Phony” in select U.S. cinemas on January 3, 2025. The movie was released in China on December 31, 2024.

Review: ‘Johnny Keep Walking!,’ starring Dong Chengpeng, White-K and Zhuang Dafei

January 27, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Johnny Keep Walking!”

Directed by Dong Runnian

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in China, mostly in 2017, the comedy film “Johnny Keep Walking!” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Due to an identity mixup, a factory worker for a large corporation accidentally gets promoted into an executive manager position, while the staff relations manager who made this mistake tries to cover it up.

Culture Audience: “Johnny Keep Walking!” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching workplace satires that try to do too much with a flimsy and thin plot.

Zhuang Dafei, Dong Chengpeng and White-K in “Johnny Keep Walking!” (Photo courtesy of Tiger Pictures Entertainment)

“Johnny Keep Walking!” starts off looking like a screwball satire of how corporate managers have such little regard for employees, they treat employees as interchangeable and disposable. But then, the movie bizarrely turns into a somewhat preachy comedy lecture about how corporate workers can find gratitude and happiness on the job if they find a way to charm their irresponsible or callous managers. The intended sharp parody of corporate incompetence is weakened by too much sentimental corniness, especially near the end of the movie. It’s overstuffed with too many unnecessary characters. It’s a one-joke film stretched to irritating limits.

Directed by Dong Runnian (who co-wrote the “Johnny Keep Walking!” screemplay with with Luojia Ying), “Johnny Keep Walking!” begins in 1998. A China-based corporation called Zonghe Group (which makes equipment parts, such as bolts and studs) is having its annual gala, which includes a talent show for employees. One of the company’s main production facilities is the Zonghe Standard Component Factory, which is in a different city from Zonghe’s corporate headquarters. The movie doesn’t mention the names of the cities where the factory and corporate headquarters are located.

At this company gala in 1998, a factory employee named Hu Jianlin (played by as Chengpeng Dong also known as Da Peng) is shown swinging from a wire, as if he’s some kind of comedic acrobat. The performance is well-received, until it ends disastrously when Jianlin crashes to the ground. Viewers soon find out that despite this mishap, Jianlin loves to perform at the company gala’s talent show every year. He has a happy-go-lucky personality that can sometimes be considered clownish. Zonghe Group is led by a typical ruthless mogul named Chairman Hu (played by Ouyang Fenqiang), who cares more about profits than people.

The movie then fast-forwards to 2017. Jianlin, a bachelor with no children, is still working in an assembly-line job at Zonghe Standard Component Factory. His title is senior fitter. He is looking forward to performing as a singer at the annual company gala. In order to do so, he has to put in an application every year. Not everyone will be chosen to perform, but Jianlin has been chosen every year, so he’s not worried. Performing at the company gala has become a tradition for him that he expects to continue.

One day, Jianlin gets some shocking news: He’s been promoted to become a mid-level manager at Zonghe’s corporate headquarters, even though he has no managerial experience and no business education. This promotion means that he will have to leave all of his factory co-worker friends behind, but Jianlin is excited and curious about this new job opportunity. His co-worker friends at the factory seem to be happy for him, but they are confused over why Jianlin was given this promotion, since he previously showed no interest in being a corporate manager.

Meanwhile, someone who is not happy about this promotion is middle-aged Zhuang Zhengzhi (played by Wang Xun), a supply manager at Zonghe Standard Component Factory. Zhengzhi had applied for this promotion not just because he wants an elevated title and a higher income but also because he wants to move to the city where Zonghe is headquartered so his children can go to a better school. Zhengzhi is enraged that an unqualified Jianlin got the promotion instead

There’s a big reason why Zhengzhi was expecting this job promotion: Zhengzhi did unethical things for a middle man named Hou Chengsi (played by Yang Lei), who promised that in return for these illegal business practices, Zhengzhi would get the job promotion. When Zhenghzi tries to call Chengsi, he is dismayed to find out that Chengsi can’t be reached on his phone. Zhenghzi interprets Chengsi’s sudden inaccessibility as Chengsi deliberately avoiding him. However, later, Zhengzhi gets a strange phone call from Zonghe headquarters where someone asks him to sing over the phone as an audition.

At Zonghe’s corporate headquarters, an awestruck Jianlin is given an office tour. He is amazed that corporate managers have their own spa and don’t do as much work as he thought. During his first few days on the job, Jianlin meets several executives. They include director of human resoures Thomas (played by Mu Da), deputy director of human resources Peter (played by Sun Yizhou, also known as Sean Sun; deputy director of human resources Jeffrey; and deputy head of staff relations/company culture Ma Jie (played by White-K, also known as Bai Ke), who goes by the name Magic.

Magic has a one-on-one meeting with Jianlin and tells him that Jianlin’s income in his new job can be up to ¥360,000 a year, which is more than $50,000 in U.S. dollars. Jianlin has never made that much income before, and he doesn’t quite believe it. He asks Magic if he can record a video on Jianlin’s phone of Magic stating this salary for Jianlin, so he can have it has evidence. It’s one of many examples that the movie has to show how Jianlin is ignorant about corporate customs.

Magic also tells Jianlin that because Zonghe is an international company, all of the executives must choose an English-language first name to make it easier to communicate with English-speaking business collegaues. After some back-and-forth dialogue, they decide that Jianlin’s English-language name will be John, nicknamed Johnny.

Shortly after this meetng, Magic finds out he had made a huge mistake: He mixed up Jianlin’s talent show application with Zhengzhi’s promotion application. He decides to himself that he can cover up this mistake, as long as he prevents Jianlin/John from doing anything important. Most of the movie is a series of repetitive and wacky predicaments of Magic trying to keep his mistake a secret while Jianlin/John naïvely works his way up Zonghe’s corporate ladder and Zhengzhi plots his revenge.

All of that would be enough for one movie, but “Johnny Keep Walking!” crams in suplots about corporate downsizing and exploitation of temporary workers. Zonghe has about 60,000 employees and plans to lay off a great deal of them. Most of the employees who are let go are lower-level workers, while the high-ranking executives not only get to keep their own jobs, they often get bonuses or raises. When the layoffs start to happen, the remaining employees become unsettled and paranoid that they will be the next to lose their jobs.

Meanwhile, Jianlin/John gets to know a cynical Zonghe employee named Pan Yiran, also known as Penny (played by Zhuang Dafei, also known as Sabrina Zhuang), who works as some type of administrative assistant. She is part of the company’s outsourced group of workers who are considered temporary workers. Penny has been working for Zonghe for the past six years.

Penny has been promised a permanent job at Zonghe, but this permanent job hasn’t happened for her yet. She has become very bitter and impatient about this unfulfilled promise. Like many temporary workers, Penny can’t afford to quit. But she’s disgruntled and is rude to her supervisor, so she often gets reprimanded for her attitude.

“Johnny Keep Walking!” has a brisk, madcap tone to it for most of the movie, but then everything starts turning into hokey mush toward the end of the film. The subplot about the scheming of Zhengzhi and Chengsi is a muddled and far-fetched mess. The annual Zonghe talent show is another subplot that is an awkward part of the story. “Johnny Keep Walking!” fares best when it focuses on lampooning how high-ranking corporate executives are frequently insincere, out-of-touch, and ill-equipped to do their jobs, but all the subplots become distractions and flaws for the movie.

Unfortunately, with too many characters and jumbled subplots, “Johnny Keep Walking!” trips over its own ambition. It’s not a completely terrible film, and some parts succeed in being amusing. The cast members do adequate jobs in their performances. But the movie’s tonal shift at the end is ridiculously hokey. Instead of consistently poking fun at corporate culture, “Johnny Keep Walking” ends up praising corporate culture with a simple-minded conclusion.

Tiger Pictures Entertainment released “Johnny Keep Walking!” in select U.S. cinemas on January 18, 2024. The movie was released in China on December 30, 2023.

Review: ‘One and Only’ (2023), starring Huang Bo and Wang Yibo

August 14, 2023

by Carla Hay

Wang Yibo in “One and Only” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“One and Only” (2023)

Directed by Da Peng

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Hangzhou, China, in 2022, in comedy/drama film “One and Only” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with a few white people and one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A talented street dancer is recruited as a stand-in on a high-ranking street dancing team that will be competing for a national championship, but he and the team’s coach have obstacles along the way, including a jealous and wealthy rival who threatens the team’s existence.

Culture Audience: “One and Only” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching modern dance movies that have great choreography and well-acted stories.

Huang Bo in “One and Only” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)

“One and Only” is one of the best dance films of the year. The choreography and cinematography are dazzling. This comedy/drama about an underdog street dancer and his conflicted coach also has a compelling and heartfelt story told with skillful acting. The story’s overall plot is entirely predictable, but viewers are taken on a thoroughly entertaining ride along the way.

Directed by Da Peng (who co-wrote the “One and Only” screenplay with Siu Bao), “One and Only takes place primarily in Hangzhou, China, in 2022. Hangzhou is the hometown of Chen Shuo (played by Wang Yibo), a talented street dancer in his late teens or early 20s. Shuo is juggling three different jobs to help pay the bills for his family, which includes his widowed mother Du Li Sha (played by Liu Min Tao) and his mother’s brother (played by Yue Yunpeng), who all live in the same household. (The movie doesn’t say how Shuo’s father died. Shuo’s maternal uncle doesn’t have a first name in the movie and is only identified as Uncle Du in the end credits.)

Shuo works in the small, casual restaurant owned by his mother, who used to be a professional singer. He also has a job at a car wash. And in his spare time, Shuo does dance jobs on the street or at parties. For his dancing gigs, Shuo works with his uncle Xie (played by Xiaoshenyang), who is the brother of Shuo’s deceased father. Xie, who is very supportive of Shuo, also acts as a quasi-manager/agent to Shuo.

Shuo’s dream is to become a professional street dancer, just like Shuo’s father was. Shuo is in awe of E-Mark, the hottest street dance team in Hangzhou, and he goes to as many of E-Mark’s performances as possible. An early scene in the movie shows Shuo rushing from completing a street dancing gig that pays him ¥300 (which is about $41 in U.S. dollars in 2022) so that he can watch E-Mark compete in the finals of the Zhejiang Street Dance Competition. The winner will have a chance to go on to the National Street Dance Competition.

Winning the National Street Dance Competition has been an elusive goal for E-Mark and for E-Mark’s coach/team owner: the scruffy and dance-obsessed Ding Lei (played by Huang Bo), who is a former professional street dancer in his late 40s. It has always bothered Lei that he has never won a national championship as a solo dancer or as part of a group. During his heyday as a dancer, Lei had the unflattering nickname Eternal Runner-up. Lei wants to live out his dream of getting a national championship through E-Mark.

Shuo is thrilled to see E-Mark win the Zhejiang Street Dance Competition, against tough competition from another talented group called Dancing Machine. E-Mark’s star dancer is Kevin (played by Casper), who is rich and arrogant. Lei is in a difficult situation because Kevin has been paying the rent on E-Mark’s rehearsal space.

Kevin holds this financial power over Lei as an excuse for Kevin to act as if Lei needs Kevin, in order for E-Mark to survive At the Zhejiang Street Dance Competition, Kevin shows up very late and almost misses the time to dance with his team. Later, when Lei confronts Kevin about his tardiness, Kevin dismisses it and says that the team couldn’t have won without him. Kevin’s bad attitude is starting to really annoy Lei. Kevin and Lei get into arguments.

And to make matters worse, Lei finds out that Kevin has not paid the rent for the rehearsal space for the last three months. Lei is now stuck with this overdue bill that he has to pay in 30 days. After another argument, Kevin (or people he hired) remove all of E-Mark’s trophies out of the rehearsal space without asking permission. Kevin has a “yes man” business manager named Liu Hongliang (played by Zhang Zixian), who has a small role in the movie but it’s a comic relief role.

Viewers soon find out what Lei plans to do about the problems that Kevin has caused. One day, Shuo is doing a job where he is dressed up as a Power Ranger who breakdances at a children’s party. At the party, Xie and Shuo are approached by Lei, who somehow found out about Shuo’s talents. Lei asks Shuo if he is interested in being a stand-in for Kevin.

It’s essentally an internship, but it’s a paid internship: Lei says that Shuo will be paid ¥5,000 a month, which is about $686 a month in U.S. dollars in 2022. Shuo is ecstatic and eagerly accepts the job, even though Lei tells Shuo that there’s no guarantee that this internship will lead to Shuo getting a permanent place on the E-Mark team. This “internship” is really Lei’s way of seeing if Shuo can eventually replace Kevin.

“One and Only” isn’t just a “hey kids, let’s put on a dance show” movie. The story does a very good job of showing who the main characters are when they’re not immersed in dance rehearsals or dance competitions. Lei is a divorced bachelor with no children. His entire life revolves around E-Mark, but he’s going through financial struggles to keep the team afloat. He treats the members of E-Mark (except for the difficult Kevin) as if they were his own children.

Lei’s ex-wife Dan Dan (played by Qi Xi) occasionally appears to give “One and Only” viewers some glimpses into what Lei’s past life is like. Dan Dan dresses like a successful business person (although the movie never says what she does for a living), and she has not remarried. In a scene where Lei happens to see Dan Dan, he jokes about how he’s going to convince her that they will get back together again. Even though the movie never says why Lei and Dan Dan got divorced, this scene has some good acting that shows there was a lot of heartache in that relationship.

As for Shuo’s personal life, he’s a shy loner who is socially awkward when it comes to dating. He’s a dutiful and obedient son to his mother, who adores him, although she’s somewhat fearful of all the rejections that Shuo will experience as an entertainer. Her restaurant is quirky: It features celebrity wax statues made by Shuo’s maternal uncle. (The celebrity wax statues include Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Chan, Albert Einstein and Michael Jackson.)

There’s a scene in “One and Only” where Xie tells Shuo some family history that Shuo didn’t know about: Uncle Du dropped out of art school when he was younger to take care of his ailing father. After the father died, Uncle Du had a nervous breakdown. When Shuo finds out this information, Shuo feel compassion for Uncle Du, whom Shuo used to think of as just a weird uncle who was a failed artist. These are the types of details in “One and Only” that give meaningful character development to the story.

Shuo has a love interest: Li Mingzhu (played by Song Zu Er), who is a journalist intern at a local newspaper. Mingzhu and Shuo, who are about the same age, know each other casually because they were classmates in high school. Shuo has had a crush on her a while, but he’s very insecure about asking her out on a date. Mingzhu drops major hints that she wants Shuo to ask her out on a date, but he’s so inexperienced in dating, he doesn’t pick up on these clues right away.

When Shuo arrives at the E-Mark rehearsal space, he is welcomed immediately by an adorable girl named Tang Tang (played by Molly Han), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Tang Tang is the daughter of E-Mark’s only female dancer: Chilli (played by Fei, no last name), who is a single mother dating another E-Mark dancer named Dragon (played by George, no last name), who has an apt nickname because of Dragon’s fiery personality. Dragon has very strong opinions and doesn’t like the idea of E-Mark being a “sell-out” dance group that will do embarrassing things for money.

The other members of E-Mark have distinctive looks and memorable names, but not much is done in the movie to make their personalities stand out from each other. The actors portraying these E-Mark members are real-life street dancers playing versions of themselves with the same or similar names that they have for their characters in the movie. They are Patrick (played by Patrick), Luffy (played by Luffy Liao, also known as Liao Bo), Jr. Taco (played by Jr. Taco), Snakeman (played by Snakeman), Forest (played by Forest), Wukong (played by David Ye), Prohecy (played by Big Ason) and Sniper (played by Sniper).

Lei becomes desperate for money to pay off his debts. And he gets an offer from a dorky young businessman named Dong Er Lang (played by Jiang Long), who used to be a street dancer but who now sells a product line of “smart” trash cans called Daxi. Lang can best be described as an E-Mark fanatic/groupie. When Lang finds out that Lei needs money fast, Lang makes a sponsorship offer that becomes the first major turning point in Shuo’s affiliation with E-Mark.

“One and Only” doesn’t have any big surprises, but it’s interesting to see how the character dynamics play out in the movie. Kevin predictably becomes jealous of Shuo. Lei becomes torn between choosing to stick with Kevin for Kevin’s money and talent (even if Kevin’s huge, problematic ego is part of the package), or to take a bif risk on unknown, super-talented dancer Shuo, who is humble and likable but who doesn’t guarantee financial security for E-Mark.

In between these dilemmas, “One and Only” has a lot of great footage of dancing that incorporates many acrobatic and gymnastic elements. Through it all, Huang as Lei and Wang as Shuo give very convincing performances as two men from different generations who bond over dancing. It’s lovely to see how Huang helps build Shuo’s self-confidence, while Shuo inspires Lei to remember the enthusiastic energy that Lei used to have as a young man before financial concerns made Lei very jaded about the business. “One and Only” isn’t just a celebration of dance. It’s also a celebration of appreciating loyal family and friendships.

CMC Pictures released “One and Only” in select U.S. cinemas and in China on August 11, 2023.