Inflatable Lover (2016)
Plot: socially stunted programmer falls in love with sentient air doll.
The cycle of otaku wish fulfillment fantasy grinds ever onward with Inflatable Lover (for once a direct translation from its native 充气情人) - another dreadful but surprisingly faithful imitation of Air Doll (2009). Next to ticking all the required boxes of the subgenre, this one differentiates itself marginally with the inclusion of a minor fantasy wuxia subplot that feels as if it was lifted straight out of the Four Great Classical Novels from Chinese literature. No, the major selling point for Inflatable Lover is its ensemble cast of popular Sino idols. As per usual the production value is on the wrong end of cheap and the post-production effects are as laughably pathetic as they always are in this type productions. What supposedly distinguishes Inflatable Lover from its immediate competition is that it was helmed by a male-and-female team of directors. It would be easy, and perfectly reasonable, to dismiss Inflatable Lover as the lowgrade made-for-TV trash that it truly is. However it does manage to occassionally hit the right notes and channel the spirit of Air Doll (2009) ever so briefly. That is if it can stop leering lustingly at Zhu Ke Er’s boobs for longer than three consecutive seconds.
The nominal star of Inflatable Lover is curvy Beijing internet model and hostess Zhu Ke Er (朱可) - or Barbie Ke Er as she was known early on while she prefers to call herself Flower Ke Er (Flower朱可儿 or 朱可儿 Flower) these days - who shot to fame thanks to her popular glamour, bikini, and topless photo shoots and her wealthy natural 32D (70D) chest. As of 2016 Ke Er had garnered a respectable half a million followers on Weibo, and an acting career was bound to follow. Zhu Ke Er’s claim to fame, if it can be called that, is that she was responsible for the imposing of a stricter dress code (specifically in regards to the centimeters of cleavage) after appearing as showgirl on the 2014 ChinaJoy expo in Shanghai. What is more than evident from the get-go is that Zhu Ke Er is no Candy Yuen Ka-Man (袁嘉敏), Connie Man Hoi-Ling (文凱玲), or Ada Liu Yan (柳岩). She’s part of a new breed of Chinese actresses that look like anime girls come to life, joining ranks with the likes of Yang Ke (杨可), Mavis Pan Shuang-Shuang (潘霜霜), Liu Zhi-Min (刘志敏), Daniella Wang Li Danni (王李丹妮), and Pan Chun Chun (潘春春). Ke Er makes somebody like Patricia Hu (胡夢媛) look petite in comparison. Suffice to say, both of Zhu’s considerable talents are put to good use, and her acting is none too shabby either. The other star here is Zou Xu Feng (邹旭峰) who apparently had a small role in LWO favorite Beauty Spies 绝色特攻 (2016).
Wu Si Wu Zhi (Wang Bo Wen) is a kind but socially stunted programmer who works at a tech company and an expert at e-sports. He’s desperately looking for a girlfriend ever since opalescent office goddess Wang Xinyi (Zou Xu Feng) broke up with him. Xinyi only has eyes (and probably thighs) for the company’s junior executive Jiang Dashao (Lu Ziqiao). In a friendly competition of some first-person shooter Wu Zhi ends up second and is given an inflatable doll as a consolation price. Wu Zhi is still madly and deeply in love with Xinyi but in absence of a live girlfriend the air doll will, and must, suffice. Wu Zhi understands Xinyi’s motivation for hooking up with the affluent and suave Jiang Dashao. Dashao has everything to offer her that he has not. Meanwhile in the ephemeral world dissident spectral maiden Xiaolian (Zhu Ke Er) is scolded by Zhong Rong (Han Faner) for not giving up her obsession with earthly love and her past life, especially now that her reincarnation looms ever closer. In an act of kindness Rong gives Xiaolian (or Little Lotus) a 10-day window to sever her tellurian relations and prepare to be reincarnated. He links her dwelling spirit to the inflatable doll that Wu Zhi just unboxed, cleaned, and clothed. Unfazed that life was suddenly breathed into his previously inanimate air doll and that she now has gained sentience Wu Si Wu Zhi not minds having a new breathtakingly beautiful girl in his apartment.
Little Lotus finds herself immediately drawn to the softspoken and kind Wu Zhi but respects his feelings for Wang Xinyi. Wu Zhi on his part loves Little Lotus’ child-like antics, her innate innocence and charming naiveté. The two agree that in the coming ten days she will help him win over Xinyi if he learns her about what it means to be human, and about love and romance. Xinyi, feeling bad the ways she ended things with Wu Zhi, comes over one day to reconcile but is surprised to find Little Lotus in his aparment. Jealous and hurt she storms off not noticing that Little Lotus is in fact an air doll. When she comes to the apartment a few days later she once again meets the two in what she believes to be an incredibly passionate lovemaking session. However, no such thing transpired as Little Lotus had punctured herself making supper and had to be manually reinflated, an act she finds incrediby arousing and Wu Zhi exhausting. Soon Wu Si Wu Zhi and Little Lotus realize that they’re madly in love with each other. Their romance is tragically cut short when Zhong Rong whisks Little Lotus back the ephemeral world where her spirit is forced to reincarnate. In the next 18 years that pass Wu Si Wu Zhi grows increasingly despondent and nearly has given up on finding Little Lotus again. Then one day a very familiar girl waves at him on the beach.
Obviously Inflatable Lover banks heavily on the full hourglass figure of Zhu Ke Er. Instead of the now standard French chambermaid costume Little Lotus dons a schoolgirl uniform complete with white overknee socks and ponytails. For most of its duration Ke Er is either in a pink nightie or a red dress. In an interesting inversion of convention Wang Bo Wen is given a shower scene and not Zhu Ke Er as you’d expect. Zhu follows Wang into the cabin but she demurely keeps her top on (this is a Mainland China television feature for a general audience after all). Like filmmakers in any repressive regime of your choosing directors in China have become increasingly inventive in skirting around and circumventing the country’s rigid censorship and regulations. Many of these productions feature their fair portion of implied nudity but all the naughty bits are either obscured by clever scene blocking or post-production optical fogging. It’s assuring to see that some things just never change no matter the circumstances.
Don’t call it a rip off but the thievery, nay, imitation, is pretty blatant or earnest depending on how you look at it. Clearly Peng Kai and Liu Yuchen loved Air Doll (2009) as some of its most vivid, inspired scenes make Inflatable Lover look as a much better feature when seen in isolation. The “birth”, “the window”, and “walking and talking” scenes are recreated in stunning, almost minute detail on a fraction of the budget. Like Nozomi in Air Doll (2009) Little Lotus punctures herself too, here while cutting vegetables for a meal, and when Wu Si Wu Zhi inflates her it has the same arousing effect on her. Where Inflatable Lover deviates the most from its Japanese forebear is that Little Lotus makes a better person out of Wu Si Wu Zhi even though he is not interested in reciprocicating her feelings.
He doesn’t come around until Little Lotus has sacrificed her mortal form and the circle is completed when she’s reincarnated some 18 years later. Said reincarnation subplot can be found in many a Sino or South Korean romance, and it’s one of the pillar conventions of Asian cinema at large. The South Korean limited series My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho 내 여자친구는 구미호 (2010) was six years in the past by this point. Just like The AI Housemaid (2018) two years later inordinate amount of time is spent on Little Lotus’ discovery of her emerging humanity and her picking up a simulacrum thereof, and the obligatory semi-comedic infantile stage that precedes it. Air Doll (2009) was a tragic fairytale and a musing on mortality and what it means to be human. Inflatable Lover is much more of a standard rom-com and relentlessly optimistic about the innate benevolence of the human animal. As always with these sort of things, it pays to familiarize oneself with the Japanese original prior to embarking on an excursion into the many available Chinese derivatives.
