Love

__**Plot (What the character wants):**__ In the film //Love//, every character wants different things. Yijia wants to deal with her pregnancy with her best friend's boyfriend, Xiaoni wants to run away from her boyfriend and best friend, Akai wants to take care of Yijia's baby and at the same time win Xiaoni's heart back, Xiaoye wants to deny her feelings for Make, Make wants to win Xiaoye's heart, Rouyi wants to escape from a luxurious but fake relationship, and finally both Luping and Xiaokuan want to win Rouyi's heart. The plot of this story is each character finds the love of their life and what obstacles they have to overcome in order to achieve the ultimate love. In the end, everyone except for Luping ends with their love of their life.

__**Theme (What the character needs):**__ In this film, although each character wants love in their life, the ultimate need is to face and battle over fate's control and find their true selves. In the triangular relationship with Xiaoni, Akai, and Yijia, in order for them to each end up in happiness, they have to face from the obstacle that fate put on them, which is the pregnancy of Yijia, and fight over it by the non-stop efforts of all three. In the Case of Rouyi wanting to escape from her luxurious but fake relationship with Luping, in order for her to have a happy life with Xiaokuan, she needs to fight away from fate's control of her being stuck with Luping. She eventually does so by staying strong to whom she truly loves. Finally, with the story of Xiaoye and Make, because of fate as a factor to her unsuccessful past relationship, she rejects all men that try to get near her, but for her to achieve happiness with Make, she needs to fight that fate that has been controlling her and accept Make's love.

__**Tone (The emotional content of the film):**__ Generally the tone of this film is very lighthearted, as it is an ensemble of various love stories. Most of the stories are intended to be light and funny, so a light tone would fit perfectly. In the instances where dramatic scenes occur, the tone may shift to being more serious, but still keeping the light atmosphere throughout the entire film.

1. Costume & Prop The first screenshot came from the beginning of the film where AKai is established as a cinematographer at funerals through his black suit, white gloves and camera. Later on in the film, in Xiaoni's dream of her death, AKai once again appears to be in her funeral and filming it. This is a choice made by the director to include Akai in the scene of Xiaoni's funeral because the scene would still flow without showing his presence. However, showing that AKai is filming the funeral can convey an ironic message to the audience and remind them that the distance between the two characters is further and further away. So this indirectly relates to the theme because as their distance is getting further and further away, in order for them to get together, they will need to break through more obstacles of fate.
 * __Mis-En-Scene__**:

2. Costume Through different choices of costume, the director emphasises the barrier between the love of different characters. For example in the scene of Xiaokuan massaging Rouyi's feet on his ghetto balcony, the director purposely showed contrast between the social hierarchy difference between the two by making Xiaokuan wearing a old plain t-shirt and Rouyi wearing a fancy long dress. When the audience sees this they will get a sense that it would be extremely difficult for these two people to get together, even if they love each other because of the different in their social hierarchy. This further contributes to the theme of the film, which is to break away from fate's control. Them being together is breaking away from fate because fate doesn't want them together, thats why there are so many barriers between them. So in order for them to get together in the end, they have to fight for freedom from fate.

3. Cinematography This shot is a worm's eye shot, and it's main purpose is to establish a powerful relationship between Make, Xiaoye and her son.In this shot, the boy is placed on the tree and looking down at the camera, this shows that the boy has the power to bring them together, because if it wasn't for him, they would of never gotten to know each other better, and thus fall in love. Eventually in this scene, Make and Xiaoye looks up to the boy, and is forced to kiss. This moves their relationship forward by a huge step; so therefore this shot shows the audience that the boy has manipulation and power over the couple.

4. Acting (Friendship broken) The acting of Xiaoni in this scene ‍shows‍ her furiousness and desperation knowing the truth of the betrayal of her best friend and her boyfriend. The purpose of the director making this choice to have the actress act like this in this scene is to show a strong imagery to the audience of how intense the plot is building up to on the road of each character finding their love, and relating to the theme, breaking away from fate's control. This scene can be seen as an act of finding love because both girls love Xiaokai, but the girl that Xiaokai does not love, is pregnant with his baby. So the acting here really emphasises the strong irony of the girlfriend's best friend being pregnant and the friendship breaking apart between Yijia and Xiaoni.

5. Lighting The lighting in this scene is very interesting. Firstly, the color of the lighting used is a dark yellow, orange color, which makes the entire scene seem ver depressing and gives it a sense of time and being from the past(this scene is a flashback). Another aspect of the lighting in this scene is that lits up half the face of both characters. This choice sends a feeling of unholiness, or something that should not have happened, which in this case is true because this scene is where it shows the betrayal of Yijia and AKai.

6. Prop (balloons) This choice of prop in a scene where Make is at Xiaoye's house and they find her son Doudou missing is important and significant to the plot of the film because through these decorations, the audience will get a sense that Xiaoye wanted to give her son an amazing birthday party. However due to the disturbance of Make throughout the day, she came home late and Doudou thought Xiaoye didn't want him anymore, which he then ran away. Later when Make and Xiaoye went out to go search for Doudou, the next step of their relationship happens and they both find love in their life. At that point, Xiaoye can escape from fate's control over her, which is her belief from her last unsuccessful marriage that she will never find love again. So the choice of balloons and other decorative lights here is a choice of the director that serves as an emphasis to the audience on the development of the plot.

7. Prop (Signs) This is the scene where AKai tries to beg for the forgiveness of Xiaoni by having two of his friends holding two signs that says "Love is bravery" and "Love is forgiveness" and then he jumps into the underwater holes. The director's use of these two props here is important because it shows the message that Akai is trying to get to Xiaoni, but because she has been avoiding and running away from him since the break up, the message never got to her. However by the use of the two signs both Xiaoni and the audience get a sense of the remorse and the message that Akai is trying to send. This contributes to the plot by helping the couple finding back their love and getting back together in the end of the film. So the director's choice of this prop is a help for their fight against fate's control.

8. Cinematography This shot is different from the other shots in the film because it is a film inside the film. In other words, this shot is actually filmed by the camera of Akai, who is in the story. The director chooses to use this shot because it supports the theme of breaking away from fate. In this case, because of the water in the scene, the lenses of the camera is wet, and creates a blurry affect on Akai's face. This affect creates a sense of unreality, and at the same time fate is playing a game on the couple. So therefore it can be connected that this shot is like a symbol of fate on both characters.

9. Framing This is a dream scene of Xiaoni that she wanted to kill herself and Akai by driving her sports car off a cliff. This is an important step in the plot because after the dream, Xiaoni and her father Luping realizes that no matter how much Xiaoni wants to hate Akai, she still loves him more than anyone else does. So this contribute to Xiaoni's road to finding love. The framing of this scene contributes to the theme of escaping fate's control because on the upper right hand corner of the frame we see a shine of light shining in, which can symbolise the freedom from fate that both characters have been longing for. So in this scene, the car looks like it is flying towards the light and away from the restriction of the fences on the cliff. So indirectly the director's choice of framing in this scene contributes to both the plot and the theme of this film.

10. Costume & Framing Throughout this entire scene, Make is shown wearing his branded suit and placed awkwardly in the poor village of Beijing. This is the director's intentional choice of costume to make Make's image not fit in with the background in order to state the social difference between him and Xiaoye. This tells the audience that these two people are not destined to be together and foreshadows that if they want to get together they will need to break through the control of fate, which relates to the theme of the film. The director also co-operated with the cinematographer and influenced the framing of this scene, because throughout, Make is always framed in the middle of the scene. This choice is made in order to emphasise the contrast between Make and his surrounding and distinguish the difference in social hierarchy.