A Little TLC(w): See You Tomorrow (2016)

It’s hard to say exactly how much this “counts” as a Wong Kar-wai film.  While Wong is credited with adapting the short story it’s based on, he isn’t directing it (that would be Jiajia Zhang, the original short story writer, in his directorial debut.)  As such, there are a lot of Wong Kar-wai-ish things going on within the movie – not sure how much of that is from the original story and how much is just Wong doing his thing – but the overall look and feel of the film doesn’t really match Wong’s typical vibe.

Chen Mo and his friend Guan Chan are co-owners of the See You Tomorrow bar in Hong Kong.  Chen Mo is also a self-described “ferryman,” someone who helps those around him navigate the uncertain waters of love.  The people in need of his help include Guan Chan, who’s desperately in love with his amnesiac chef ex-girlfriend, and Xiao Yu, a ferryman-in-training who’s carrying a torch for a washed-up rocker.  Lots of heartache, lots of drinking, and lots of whimsical solutions to dealing with love woes.

All sorts of Wong-esque stuff going on here.  Chen Mo has actual heart palapitations whenever he hears a song that reminds him of his former lover, food and love are all jumbled together, and plenty of characters have very particular, neurotic ways of either getting closer to the one they love or keeping them at arm’s length.  Narratively, it’s perhaps a cousin of Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, at least on the romance angle.  Surprisingly, though, I was also reminded a lot of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s work.  I wouldn’t have thought those two filmmakers were all that similar, but even though their movies tend to be very different in tone and feel, this movie made me realize that they’re alike in the way so many of their characters are melancholy and/or shy romantics with odd obsessive quirks.

It’s that tone and feel which finally makes me see the parallels with Jeunet, which is probably why I didn’t see it before.  Even Wong’s lightest films (again, probably Chungking Express) have this really lonely quality to them, and his method of making movies achieves a unique atmosphere that feels highly stylized and quietly raw at the same time.  His films meander, and the story is unearthed amid long scenes that can feel like nothing’s happening, but really, they’re drawing the map to understand the characters and the relationships between them.

But ultimately, this isn’t a full-fledged Wong Kar-wai movie.  Under Zhang’s direction, the film is simultaneously slick and frenetic, constantly moving with eye-popping colors.  It’s not exactly Jeunet’s aesthetic, but it’s a good deal closer to it, which brings out the similar narrative quirks in the story.  The direction here is messier than a Jeunet film, but it’s not Wong’s intentional, understated kind of messy, either.  It’s messy like a first-time director who has big ideas and isn’t always sure how to make them all fit together.  That said, despite feeling a little reductive, the film is still fairly compelling and kept my attention well.  The kinds of love stories we see going on here are the kinds I love.  I especially enjoy an extended flashback showing why Xiao Yu is still so hung up on this fading rock star that everyone else has written off.

Takeshi Kaneshiro also appears in the movie as Guan Chan (another Kaneshiro character in a Wong-adjacent movie whose heartbreak is tied up in food, a la Chungking Express.)  I’m not familiar with Angelababy, Eason Chan, or Sandrine Pinna, but all three of them are very engaging as Xiao Yu, her rock star, and Guan Chan’s ex.

All this, and I still haven’t gotten to Tony Leung Chiu-wai yet!  As Chen Mo, Leung gets the job done as a cynical romantic who throws himself into other people’s problems to avoid thinking about his own.  Part wing man, part master consoler, part spirit guide, Chen Mo brings a steadiness to the proceedings; even when the film is at its most frantic, Chen Mo included, there’s still something grounding about him.

From about 2046 on, Leung’s output has slowed down quite a bit, so it always sort of stands out to be to see one of his recent films.  He’s still got it, of course – think of his magnetically-understated performances in Red Cliff or The Grandmaster, or even the silly fun he adds to Monster Hunt 2 – but while he’s good in this movie, there’s nothing really noteworthy about it for me.  It reminds me more of something like The Great Magician, although without the dubbing.  While I wouldn’t say he phones either performance in, there’s something just a little distant about both.  Leung is equally adept at being both kinetic and still, but here, there’s a slight distraction to the energy and the stillness doesn’t quite have the electricity in it that I’ve seen from him before.

Recommend?

In General – I think so.  While the film could’ve used either an extra polish or more intentionality in its messiness, I still enjoyed it a lot and got sucked into the characters and their troubles.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Maybe.  As long as the movie is at least decent, you can never really go wrong with Leung, but while this performance is nice, I wouldn’t rate it an absolute must-see.

Warnings

Inhuman amounts of drinking, smoking, some violence, and language.