Movie thoughts and pic spam: 如果愛 Perhaps Love (2005) [not dial up friendly sorry ....]
I really wanted to like this movie. I love musicals and this appearance-wise was a cross between Singing in the Rain and Moulin Rouge - both of which I adore. I also love Takeshi Kaneshiro and this is an undeniably beautiful-looking movie but the storyline left me feeling very flat. The characters are also quite unappealing.
Takeshi Kaneshiro plays Lin Jian-Dong, a popular Hong Kong moviestar who arrives in Shanghai to work on a musical directed by the famous Nie Wen (Jacky Cheung). The leading lady of the musical is the beautiful Sun Na (Zhou Xun) who is Nie Wen's business partner and has also been involved him for a number of years. The relationship which is already under strain, is further complicated when Jian-Dong arrives.
It's a simple storyline. The play within the play has been done before. In the musical, a girl (played by Sun Na) has a childhood sweetheart but for some reason I don't quite get, forgets him and joins a circus as a showgirl where the ringmaster gives her new memories and she becomes his lover. Eventually, the boy (played by Jian-Dong) shows up and tries to remind her of their love. As the role of the ringmaster in the musical is unfilled, the director Nie Wen casts himself in the role of the third angle of the love triangle.
As is the convention in such stories, the story in the musical actually parallels the lives of the actors. Not only is Sun Na's character romantically involved with Nie Wen character, when Jian Dong appears, we discover that 10 years earlier back in Beijing when Jian Dong was studying to be a director, he was romantically involved with Sun Na who was at the time a struggling actress/dancer. Their 'love affair' ended because of Sun Na's desperate ambition to be a successful actress. Now she clearly wants to forget her past, Jian-Dong appears to have returned to seek revenge and Nie Wen, just like his character, is the third party who can only watch on jealously. And sing. A lot.
My view is that the Sun Na character is the weak link. She is the woman both men desperately crave and desire and while she is undeniably beautiful, she's basically a manipulative, ambitious, ruthless bitch who'll sleep with any director if he promises her he'll get her a Hollywood gig. It's hard to care about the characters when the heroine is so awful and the two leading guys are so retarded as to fall for such a shallow, grasping and conniving character.
When Perhaps Love flashes back to Jian-Dong and Sun Na's relatively happier Beijing days, it's rather lovely although, I didn't even like 'nice' Sun Na.
Regrettably Takeshi Kaneshiro is playing yet another handsome but emotionally-crippled young man who yearns for a girl beyond his reach. Unlike Anna Magdalena, they've actually made Takeshi look genuinely geeky and dorky in his Beijing scenes presumably to contrast with his later suave appearance as a movie star. I have to say, he looks rather good in this movie and even when I found myself feeling a bit bored, it was always nice to see Takeshi.
Then there's the weird role played by Korean actor Ji Jin-Hee. He is Monty and the film's narrator. He's supposed to be an 'emotion' collector or memory collector whose task is to return emotions or memories to those who've forgotten or denied them. As all 3 of the main characters are such people, Monty shows up in different guises and roles - wearing different outfits. He also sings. It's a strange character but I quite liked Ji Jin-Hee's portrayal. His Mandarin was very good as was his singing. In fact, sadly enough, he was the most likeable character.
The last film I saw by Peter Chan's was the Hong Kong film Comrades, Almost a Love Story (甜蜜蜜) which was an insightful look into the early days when mainlanders were entering Hong Kong and the reactions they faced. Like that movie, Perhaps Love is polished, thoughtful and filmed beautifully. I think it fails in terms of screenplay, dialogue and character development. I just never grew to care enough about any of the characters.....
In fact my favourite 'character' was probably the setting. The cinematography is beautiful. The Shanghai sequences were done by Peter Pau and Christopher Doyle (who films most of Wong Kar Wai's movies as well as Infernal Affairs) filmed the Beijing sequences - which were my favourite.
It's not a bad movie. Just very bland and I occasionally felt a wee bit bored......
Pic Spam
Three shots from the opening sequence:
Yes that's Eric Tsang who played Sam the bad guy in Infernal Affairs: :)
Takeshi channelling his character in 'Returner' ;)
Glamourous Sun Na of the 'present':
Glamourous Takeshi of the 'present':
Dorky Beijing Takeshi of 10 years earlier. I told you he looked dorky:
Takeshi looking even dorkier ;)
Beijing Sun Na of 10 years earlier:
The members of the Love Triangle
Sun Na as the forgetful circus showgirl of the musical:
Takeshi as the wistful boy of the musical:
Lovesick, insomniac Takeshi:
Present day tension:
OK that's it. There could be thousands more but you get the gist of how the movie looks ;)
Takeshi Kaneshiro plays Lin Jian-Dong, a popular Hong Kong moviestar who arrives in Shanghai to work on a musical directed by the famous Nie Wen (Jacky Cheung). The leading lady of the musical is the beautiful Sun Na (Zhou Xun) who is Nie Wen's business partner and has also been involved him for a number of years. The relationship which is already under strain, is further complicated when Jian-Dong arrives.
It's a simple storyline. The play within the play has been done before. In the musical, a girl (played by Sun Na) has a childhood sweetheart but for some reason I don't quite get, forgets him and joins a circus as a showgirl where the ringmaster gives her new memories and she becomes his lover. Eventually, the boy (played by Jian-Dong) shows up and tries to remind her of their love. As the role of the ringmaster in the musical is unfilled, the director Nie Wen casts himself in the role of the third angle of the love triangle.
As is the convention in such stories, the story in the musical actually parallels the lives of the actors. Not only is Sun Na's character romantically involved with Nie Wen character, when Jian Dong appears, we discover that 10 years earlier back in Beijing when Jian Dong was studying to be a director, he was romantically involved with Sun Na who was at the time a struggling actress/dancer. Their 'love affair' ended because of Sun Na's desperate ambition to be a successful actress. Now she clearly wants to forget her past, Jian-Dong appears to have returned to seek revenge and Nie Wen, just like his character, is the third party who can only watch on jealously. And sing. A lot.
My view is that the Sun Na character is the weak link. She is the woman both men desperately crave and desire and while she is undeniably beautiful, she's basically a manipulative, ambitious, ruthless bitch who'll sleep with any director if he promises her he'll get her a Hollywood gig. It's hard to care about the characters when the heroine is so awful and the two leading guys are so retarded as to fall for such a shallow, grasping and conniving character.
When Perhaps Love flashes back to Jian-Dong and Sun Na's relatively happier Beijing days, it's rather lovely although, I didn't even like 'nice' Sun Na.
Regrettably Takeshi Kaneshiro is playing yet another handsome but emotionally-crippled young man who yearns for a girl beyond his reach. Unlike Anna Magdalena, they've actually made Takeshi look genuinely geeky and dorky in his Beijing scenes presumably to contrast with his later suave appearance as a movie star. I have to say, he looks rather good in this movie and even when I found myself feeling a bit bored, it was always nice to see Takeshi.
Then there's the weird role played by Korean actor Ji Jin-Hee. He is Monty and the film's narrator. He's supposed to be an 'emotion' collector or memory collector whose task is to return emotions or memories to those who've forgotten or denied them. As all 3 of the main characters are such people, Monty shows up in different guises and roles - wearing different outfits. He also sings. It's a strange character but I quite liked Ji Jin-Hee's portrayal. His Mandarin was very good as was his singing. In fact, sadly enough, he was the most likeable character.
The last film I saw by Peter Chan's was the Hong Kong film Comrades, Almost a Love Story (甜蜜蜜) which was an insightful look into the early days when mainlanders were entering Hong Kong and the reactions they faced. Like that movie, Perhaps Love is polished, thoughtful and filmed beautifully. I think it fails in terms of screenplay, dialogue and character development. I just never grew to care enough about any of the characters.....
In fact my favourite 'character' was probably the setting. The cinematography is beautiful. The Shanghai sequences were done by Peter Pau and Christopher Doyle (who films most of Wong Kar Wai's movies as well as Infernal Affairs) filmed the Beijing sequences - which were my favourite.
It's not a bad movie. Just very bland and I occasionally felt a wee bit bored......
Pic Spam
Three shots from the opening sequence:
Yes that's Eric Tsang who played Sam the bad guy in Infernal Affairs: :)
Takeshi channelling his character in 'Returner' ;)
Glamourous Sun Na of the 'present':
Glamourous Takeshi of the 'present':
Dorky Beijing Takeshi of 10 years earlier. I told you he looked dorky:
Takeshi looking even dorkier ;)
Beijing Sun Na of 10 years earlier:
The members of the Love Triangle
Sun Na as the forgetful circus showgirl of the musical:
Takeshi as the wistful boy of the musical:
Lovesick, insomniac Takeshi:
Present day tension:
OK that's it. There could be thousands more but you get the gist of how the movie looks ;)