The Rise of a Tomboy

Plot

The movie starts off with two college students at the University of Sydney, He Xiu Wu (Zhao Liying) and Lily (Alan Dawa Dolma), performing an experiment on a formula developed by Xiu Wu called the True Love Formula, a mathematical formula derived for the purpose of helping people find their soulmates for life to significantly reduce the number of divorces and broken families that occur frequently in modern society. Xiu Wu, however, severely lacks the funding necessary for this idea to lift off officially. She attempts to spark people's interest at a gathering in the college courtyard, but to no avail. Things take a turn for worse when Lily attempts suicide; according to Xiu Wu's formula, Lily had to go out with three "loser boyfriends" before finding her true love, which ought to have been the fourth boyfriend, Chen Ye. After turning down or getting turned down for four times, Lily lost faith in herself to find her true love and lost confidence in her friend's formula, thus leading to her attempted suicide. As she hit the water she intended to crash into, she crash-landed onto a surfacing diver, instead. This diver is Ye Si Yi (Hans Zhang), an amateur composer from Beijing and a sissy boy who's in Sydney to find a pearl oyster with a live-in bean crab, in order to profess his love towards mega-babe and pop star, Sun Qiao Qiao (Kimmy Tong). Si Yi saves Lily, but Lily, all drunk and depressed, keeps calling Si Yi by her ex's name, Chen Ye, leading to Xiu Wu thinking that Si Yi was Chen Ye. Xiu Wu and Si Yi's first meeting is when Xiu Wu gives Si Yi a mighty kick in the face, for she was furious at Chen Ye for breaking Lily's heart like that. The second time they meet is when Xiu Wu and Si Yi are in Sydney's red light district, Xiu Wu being there on the advice of another USYD student to raise money by taking some "sweet shots" of the different shops and hookers in said district, and Si Yi being there asking for directions to the nearest aquarium. When they meet again, Xiu Wu gets into another fight with Si Yi about his hanging around hookers and his looking down on hookers, though this was, strictly speaking, a one-sided conversation on her part. The argument ends with Xiu Wu punching Si Yi in the face, accidentally giving him a bleeding nose, subsequently leading to her bolting from the scene and Si Yi speaking to himself that he's doomed even when using Mandarin to talk to girls.

Xiu Wu is determined to find out what went wrong with Lily's case, so she decides to experiment on herself back in Beijing with the True Love Formula. Si Yi, with his bean crab and pearl oyster finally found, takes a flight back to Beijing to profess his mad love to Qiao Qiao. The quarreling duo meet again at Beijing Capital International Airport, in the presence of Qiao Qiao, unfortunately for Si Yi. The two argue, and Qiao Qiao misunderstands Si Yi as going to Sydney to look for hookers, leading to her breaking up with Si Yi and Xiu Wu finding out finally that he's not Chen Ye. They part ways, Xiu Wu to stay at a hotel, and Si Yi to go back to his flat. Only after they separate, however, does Xiu Wu realize that she took Si Yi's suitcase. After evading officers of a local pound who want to take in her golden retriever, Kwasa, for they required documents of ownership, of which Xiu Wu couldn't provide since those were in her missing suitcase, she finds out the address of Si Yi's flat from his suitcase, and clears up their misunderstanding. Much to her dismay, she finds out that her suitcase wasn't taken by Si Yi, but outright went missing. While Si Yi is on the phone with the airport regarding Xiu Wu's suitcase, Xiu Wu looks around Si Yi's flat, observing the items and belongings in the flat, making deductions about what kind of person is Ye Si Yi. Si Yi gets hung up on by the airport, with no news regarding Xiu Wu's suitcase. Xiu Wu announces that she'll be Si Yi's new flatmate, much to his displeasure.

This movie centers on how Xiu Wu and Si Yi develop their relationship during their time together, how they manage to find a common ground between the logic of a mathematician and the ideals of a musician. Additionally, they each get their own love dramas that are at times, interwoven and independent of each other. Si Yi has his love drama with Sun Qiao Qiao, who's a gold digger who depends on he for writing music, but depends on another man named Ge Yang (Jung Il Woo) for her daily living. Xiu Wu has her own love drama with Ge Yang, CEO of a major corporation in China and boyfriend of Sun Qiao Qiao, who seeks to take in Xiu Wu's True Love Formula and sell it worldwide as a cell phone application. For Si Yi, he discovered that true love wasn't anything at all like his obsession with Qiao Qiao, but rather, being able to feel the heartbeat of one's soulmate, for only the hearts of soulmates would beat in sync with each other. For Xiu Wu, it boils down to an enormous dilemma; the True Love Formula says that Ge Yang is her "true love", but her heart and even Lily herself tell Xiu Wu otherwise. Which should it be for He Xiu Wu; the True Love Formula or Ye Si Yi? Her life's work or her heart's calling?

Cast

Reception

The film opened in third place on its opening weekend in China, with US$5.02 million.