This is mostly a nice little romcom. A bit cheesy but enjoyable, even as it leans hard into the preciousness of its lead character (premise spoilers.)
Tung-tung is a nice young woman just doing her best. She’s constantly working an assortment of jobs to help keep her ailing grandfather and irresponsible brother afloat. When she runs into an old classmate who’s since hit it big, Tung-tung is hired as her new assistant and immediately falls for her boyfriend, a handsome business scion named Wing. Unfortunately for her, any type of contact with a man she likes renders her pretty much completely speechless.
The Raj Koothrappali effect, in other words, long before The Big Bang Theory was a thing, only Tung-tung can’t get over it by being drunk. The whole setup for the romance is cranked up to 11. Chi-sum, Wing’s girlfriend, is shallow, crass, and awful. Tung-tung is quirky-cute, borderline saintly, and hopelessly tongue-tied. Wing is dashing but slightly oblivious. You know precisely where this story is going to end up, even if it takes some unexpected turns to get there.
Still, I enjoyed myself. It’s a cute film, and twee or not, Tung-tung is winning enough that you root for her to succeed (not to mention, even though Wing doesn’t quite live up to Tung-tung’s starry-eyed view of him, he doesn’t deserve being saddled with a girlfriend as awful as Chi-sum.) Things pick up quite a bit in the second half of the film, when a surprise turn of events throws Tung-tung and Wing together in an unconventional way and Tung-tung needs to figure out what to do with it.
It’s a little thing, but I do also enjoy Tung-tung’s relationship with her grandfather and brother. Her grandfather has dementia, and while that puts a lot of responsibility on Tung-tung’s shoulders and creatres a lot of upheaval in the household, she still dotes on him, and in his more lucid moments, it’s clear that he feels the same about her. And for all that her brother gets himself into constant trouble and can be pretty selfish, he does what he can to come through for Tung-tung when it really counts.
Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays Wing. It’s kind of an interesting framing for a romcom lead, precisely because it’s just a little ambiguous. Rather than being an obviously fabulous catch or a jerk with hidden depths/vulnerabilities, Wing is a bit in-between. He’s not unkind, but he’s a little inattentive. He’s sweet, but he doesn’t go out of his way to do it. He’s not really snobby, but he’ll throw his money around in certain situations. I’m reminded just slightly of Josh Chan on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Even though Wing and Josh are wildly different characters who ultimately have different functions in their respective stories, they’re similar in how the lead is completely lovestruck with them and uses every “love kernel” they drop (c/o: Rebecca Bunch) to reinforce their adulation.
In that sense, it’s a nice performance from Leung. It strikes a good balance, and while Tung-tung is the character whose happiness we’re more invested in, Wing has enough going for him that we a) don’t want to see him unhappy either and b) can assume he’ll probably end up being a good match for Tung-tung.
I don’t know how much of a spoiler it is, given the title, but I do need to mention one more thing. Over the course of the film, Wing suffers an accident that results in blindness (temporary or permanent? That question fuels the second half of the film,) making this yet another movie in which Leung plays a blind character, the fourth such role of his I’ve seen. I know it was the ‘90s, and I know the film/TV industry still regularly casts ablebodied actors to play disabled characters (Hollywood, Hong Kong – it makes no difference,) but that doesn’t make it better. You can offer the excuse that the actor playing Wing needs to be sighted because the character starts out sighted and becomes blind later, but 1) movies/shows use that excuse all the time and 2) it reflects the entertainment industry’s focus on disability as an immediate crisis point rather than one of many facets of a person’s life.
Recommend?
In General – On its own, I’d say maybe – it’s a cute bit of fluff. The blind angle does bother me, though, and that makes me more hesitant to recommend it.
Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Possibly. Again, I like the line Leung walks with his portrayal of Wing, but the blind thing bugs me. If you must watch Leung play a blind/low vision character, Ashes of Time is a much more worthwhile film/character/performance.
Warnings
Sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, and a few racist remarks.
No comments:
Post a Comment