Before it succumbs to schmaltz, this well-meaning comedy from Chinese director Zhang Yimou works as a nice fable about a con man who can’t help but do good. Zhao Benshan stars as an aging bachelor whose desperate desire to marry leads him to a variety of George Costanza-like schemes, including a claim to be the manager of a thriving hotel. When his fiance demands that he employ her blind stepdaughter as a masseuse, he enlists friends to help fabricate a massage parlor in an abandoned factory. There’s some genial farce as they try to deceive the girl, but the melodramatic ending, complete with tragic twists of fate, tries to inflate the movie beyond its
meager capabilities.
