<FESTIVAL & AWARDS>

VENICE FILM FESTVAL 2006
IN COMPETITION ~ CINEAWENIRE AWARD (CINEMA FOR PEACE AWARD)

GIJON FILM FESTIVAL 2006
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE

OFFICIAL SELECTION
TORONTO, PUSAN, TOKYO FILMEX, VANCOUVER, LONDON, HONG KONG, THESSALONIKI, MONTREAL NEW CINEMA, SAO PAULO, TALLINN BLACK NIGHTS, BANGKOK WORLD, REYKJAVIK, ROTTERDAM

NEW CROWNED HOPE FESTIVAL 2006

ASIAN FILM AWARDS
NOMINATED FOR BEST DIRECTOR AND BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

IN MANDARIN & MALAY WITH ENGLISH & CHINESE SUBTITLES
Genre: Drama
Director: Tsai-Min Liang
Cast: CHEN Shiang-Chyi, LEE Kang-Sheng, Norman ATUN, Pearly CHUA
RunTime: 1 hr 57 mins
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films & Festive Films
Rating: TBA

Opening Day: 5 April 2007

Synopsis :

After being attacked and robbed in Kuala Lumpur, the homeless Hsiao Kang is taken in by some Bangladeshi workers. One of them, Rawang, lets Hsiao Kang sleep beside him on an old mattress he has found. As he nurses Hsiao Kang’s wounded body, he feels calm and contented. Is it because of the mattress or because of Hsiao Kang? Chyi, who waits tables in a small coffee shop, is also nursing someone: her lady boss’s paralysed son. Chyi hates her life. When she happens to meet Hsiao Kang, her body fills with lustful desires. However, her difficulty in finding a place to have sex with him brings home to her just how little freedom she has.
As Hsiao Kang slowly recovers, he finds himself caught between Rawang and Chyi, pleading for attention like a stray cat but equally capable of fluttering away as free as a moth. Chyi’s lady boss also develops lustful feelings for Hsiao Kang, finding that he resembles her paralysed son...

Meanwhile a heavy haze envelops the city that is so humid that it reeks of the sweat of its multi-ethnic population. These men and women and the old mattress lose their way in the haze, but perhaps find each other …

Movie Review:


I won’t pretend that I like this film. I won’t even pretend that I understand what is happening in this 115-minute arthouse flick. But this work by auteur Tsai Ming-Liang will have a strange effect on us urbanites – you just need to experience it yourself.

After mind-boggling films like What Time Is It There? (2001) and outrageously bold ones like The Wayward Cloud (2005), the auteeur continues to make movies that will outrightly test your patience. This is the first time Tsai is making a film in his homeland Malaysia, and his ninth work tells the story of, to put it simply, urban alienation.

A familiar face in Tsai’s films, Lee Kang-Sheng takes on two roles in this story about freedom. One of them is a homeless man taken in by a Bangladeshi worker, while the other is a vegetable taken care by a girl who works in a coffee shop.

The auteur continues employing long takes to allow the patient viewer to appreciate every detail in every shot. You’d appreciate the slow-moving revolving fan, the drops of water trickling from the tap, or simply the actor’s long stares into space. Before you step into the cinema, calm yourself down as the visual journey will be a draining and intensive one.

So latecomers, rushing into the theatre won’t do you any good.

Lee’s forlorn look works well in a genre like this because of the perpetual disengagement in his eyes (even when he is lying on bed as a vegetable). Theatre actresses Chen Shiang-Chyi (who plays a girl seeking love and companionship) and Pearlly Chua (who plays a sexually repressed coffee shop owner) put their acting chops to good use in roles that do not talk much. First-time actor Norman Atun (who plays the foreign worker who nurses Lee back to health in a construction work site) has an odd gentleness which nicely complements the otherwise alienating picture.

The minimal lack of dialogue in this film may turn off some viewers, but the well-framed shots and proverbial images of Kuala Lumpur are indulgingly pleasurable to look at.

For those who are looking out for social commentaries, they are not lacking in this international film festival favourite too. Familiar issue like the haze problem, and foreign workers are explored, though no solution is given.

But what are these problems compared to universal issues of loneliness, love and the need for companionship?

In the film’s most painful scene, the coffee shop owner (played by Chua) forces her worker’s (played by Chen) hand to masturbate the vegetable (played by Lee) lying on bed. As the scene goes on, the ache is almost indescribable.

On the other hand, when the film concludes with a soothingly calm note, accompanied by an apt oldie tune, I can’t help but feel envy for the characters in the story – unlike me who has just finished penning this review in the wee hours of the morning; they don’t have to sleep alone.

Movie Rating:

(A film that requires your patience and appreciation to achieve its full gratification effect)

Review by John Li