| What a frustrating film to watch! Based strictly on the cover art, you might anticipate a lighthearted romantic tale. Instead, it's a drama about people who communicate better over the Internet than in person. As you might expect, that makes for an often dull film. Whatever chance the story might have to captivate the viewer is robbed by the very poorly-translated English subtitles. What makes it really agonizing, though, is that the director demonstrates a good eye for framing scenes and that glimmers of emotional truth bubble just beneath the surface. The virtues of the tale are sabotaged by the manipulation of the characters. And the ending tries to wrap everything up in a nice bow, but instead exposes the shortcomings. The look of the film is handsome, although the music pushes too many familiar romantic buttons.
The lead actress gives a very fine performance covering a wide range of emotions convincingly. Unfortunately we haven't identified her yet by name -- she's barely noted on the back cover. Jordan Chan maintains one note throughout as Tsia-Chung -- glum and remote. Zhang Zhen (as A-Tai) and Shu Qi (as Siu Yu) bring a bit of life in their limited screen time, and several other actresses sparkle in minor roles. |
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