What’s more embarrassing than crying so hard in a theater that your contacts pop out?
Sitting in a private cube to watch a film in the press office and sobbing quietly to yourself while watching a film on a flatscreen monitor with headphones on and wiping your face as you sniffle and shake in a puddle of utter sappy embarrassment.
Yeah. That’d be me stubbling through Jtown wiping my face and looking towards my feet because I’m too embarrassed to face anyone with the shameless bawling that I’ve just experienced. I was planning on watching Zhang Zi Yi in Princess Racoon this evening but my dignity was too decimated to handle staying in the theater any longer.
Damn you Andy Lau.
Ok.. indulge me with this odd introduction.
But you know those Korean pop music videos? Where there is a hunky sulky dude character who wears a slick white suit or a slick black suit and has a styling watch etc, falls in love with someone, there’s rain (or snow) some sort of tragic circumstance, and then someone either dies or has to give up their eyeballs or something. And even though you know it’s painfully cheesy, you still wind up crying your eyes out and trying to do anything you can to find out how you can loop the same music video over and over again because you kinda dig being wrapped up in so much melodramatic whimsy.
Ok. So yeah. Imagine that being an entire HK love movie with 2, count em, 2 characters played by the Mr. Hunky Andy Lau.
Suspend your disbelief a moment and imagine that you are suspended as a translucent ghost watching Dr. Ko (played by Andy Lau of Infernal Affairs, House of Flying Daggers, etc) as he travels between present and past and becomes lovelorn and desperate to redeem the love that he neglected for his wife Zi Qing (Charlene Choi … remember her in the Vampire Affect? No? Or how about the ultra cutesy packaging as one of the HK acting/action fighting chick twins?) who expires in a sudden car accident after their 108th rescheduled dinner together. The heart of Dr. Ko’s wife, premised with a scan of an aritcle re: organs retaining some memory despite transplants (and mind you, go along with the suspension of disbelief and ignore the fact that this idea has been used in countless horror films and even a Simpson’s episode re: an evil toupee) is transplanted into the heart of another woman,Sam, (Charlie Young) with a terminal condition and a husband Derek Hui, also neglectful, that looks uncannily like Dr. Ko.
Without telling you too much to spoil the joy (and sobbing) of the film, I’ll say that the imagery, direction and editing of the film are flawless in conveying univeral human themes on love, estrangement, guilt, obsession, abandonment, a desperate need for redemption, forgiveness, and ultimately letting things go. Water and magic are seamlessly drawn through the length of the film as is the desire to continue in the wildly extravagent and romantic possibilities that are only possible when you throw yourself completely and passionately into love.
I give it a sobbing nose sniffly faced 5/5 pigtails.
This film will surely be available at your local Intl or Asian film festival and major distribution soon. Bring Kleenex. And if you can, someone you love.