YOLO review: Jia Ling’s physical transformation is astonishing in Chinese blockbuster comedy

YOLO  (PG13)

Starring Jia Ling, Lei Jiayin, Zhang Xiaofei

Directed by Jia Ling

A plus-size woman joins a boxing club, trains insanely like Rocky, and fights a fearsome opponent in a really brutal showdown.

You'd think this China dramedy about personal triumph is a boxing movie. Not totally. It's more a combo of female empowerment, self-worth uplift and astonishing, cathartic weight loss.

Jia Ling (China's top-grossing female director with blockbuster weepie Hi, Mom) plays Du Leying, an aimless, self-loathing sad sack who turns into a determined slugger metaphorically in the ring and in life. In every scene big and small here, she literally fills the screen as she drags us to her side.

YOLO is uneven. Part of it is, of course, perspiration. The rest is humiliation.

You'll see scenes as diverse as an unlikely TV gameshow, two women scuffling on the floor of their home, an awkward romance for a full-grown virgin, and that said big bout so viciously and realistically shot it makes Sly Stallone's macho punches look like girly powderpuffs.

But you'll be glad that this isn't a typical Hollywood-style boxing pic. It's a remake of a 2014 Japanese indie tale, 100 Yen Love, given — no pun intended — broader appeal. And gladder that it's helmed by a director-comedienne with a good eye for filmic flair encompassing both funny and heavy.

A comical sequence shows Leying gulp down street food like a walking trash compactor. A poignant one sees a solitary light go up the stairs following a trudge towards abject anguish on the darkened facade of a block of flats. It's arthouse-worthy.

“Boxing has made me thin,” Leying says as a massive understatement.

Because the plump Jia shrinks right before our eyes in a jaw-dropping montage as she undergoes an amazing transformation. She reportedly piled on extra poundage to look even more slob-like heavy. Before shedding more than 50 kg over a year of filming to become a brand-new, suddenly attractive hottie.

A visual feat which this flick proudly plays up. There's a highly effective scene showing a glass-pane reflection of her old big self urging her new trim self onwards as she heads for the climactic boxing match.

But here's the thing about YOLO. Depending on your politically-correct-or-not stance, it's either an inspirational fat-to-fit story about overhauling oneself drastically for the better. Or a pandering conformity to conventional standards of physical appearances. Along with the cruel prejudices that go with it.

Meaning — the chubby gal is unloved, mocked, betrayed and taken advantage of as a pushover by practically everybody except her mother because, well, she looks exactly the way a loser should. The hopelessly submissive sort whose ex-boyfriend and best friend embarrass her even further at their wedding.

“I cheated because I can. Can you?” Ledan (Last Suspect's Zhang Xiaofei), the two-timing divorced sister, spits at 32-year-old Leying as she berates the latter's miserable no-husband, no-kids, no-job, no-nothing homebound-bum existence with a perpetual scowl and utter contempt.

Finally leaving her debilitating comfort zone after an argument, Leying becomes a waitress in a restaurant that's near a boxing club. Where she embarks on an Un-Beauty-and-the-Beast relationship with a roughhewn boxing-purist coach, Haokun (Full River Red’s Lei Jiayin), looking to sell her gym membership before bunking in as the too-good-to-be-true boyfriend.

Here's where we laugh with Jia Ling as she totes up her common-touch underdog comedy of accidental togetherness — Jia hanging on while Lei sticks around is spot-on relatable — before going serious with her elevating drama of body-on-the-line, character-building loneliness.

“Have you ever won? Even just once?” goes the motivational line in YOLO.

Like the viewer, the transformed director herself, at the film's outtakes, looks very gleeful that she did. (3.5/5 stars)

Photos: Sony Pictures Entertainment