Heung joh chow heung yau chow

I loved this movie. I caught only the last half on TV recently and tracked down the full film to see all of it. I am not familiar with the original illustrated novel though. It is a fairy tale for grownups, with humour, sadness, and a bit of slapstick. Lovely Gigi Leung plays her part of Eve Loi the romantic day-dreaming and slightly clumsy lover of poetry delightfully, and handsome Takeshi Kaneshiro plays the romantic, awkward and intensely shy John Liu to perfection. I was glad the corny temptation to resist naming them Adam and Eve was resisted. The symmetry of the parallel events is fun to anticipate, and the anti-symmetry of the two evil counter-characters adds to the complexity and a foil to the perhaps a bit saccharine sweetness of the main plot and characters The incidental parallel sub-plot of the avaricious landlords also meeting and exchanging phone numbers in the rain is a nice touch. I can forgive the occasional technical hiccups and goofs for the sheer lovely romance that it is.

I am normally a fan of Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai, though lately I have found they forays outside of macho, all-male films a bit distressing. Stylized though films such as Chung Fo and PTU were, films such as Running on Karma and Turn Left Turn Right can not but make me wonder about if they have any sort of talent outside of the genre made great by the likes of John Woo.

The film, based on a story by Jimmy, a comic book writer of a gloomy variety from Taiwan, takes the premise that two people who, having met once when they were small, are fated to take on lives which parallel each other's. Without giving too much away, it follows the typical boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl routine. Fair and well. But the good things I have to say end here.

<Chip on shoulder warning>

It is difficult to take a film seriously when it attempts to portray a violinist who is supposed to be good enough to be hired from Taiwan to work for an orchestra in Vienna, when the actor himself can not be bothered to learn to hold a violin properly, let alone bowing properly to the music he was supposed to be playing. Equally, it is difficult to root for a girl who get scared translating German horror novels into Chinese, when her very job was translation of such texts. Perhaps the use of the Polish poet, and her poem, served some dramatic purpose which eludes me, though I suspect its only purpose was to show how "classy" and "refined" our heroin was. But the Chinese translation she kept mumbling on about was so badly done, so hard on the ears, so devoid of literary artistry that it only served to alienate me, the audience, rather than giving me the sense of fate and romance that it was supposed to. In short, two rather lacking actors playing two unconvincing and rather lacking characters. Apt, perhaps. Interesting? No.

Then there was the supporting cast. I fail to understand what the script writer and the director thought throwing two comical supporting characters into what should have been a gloomy film, shot all in a grey tone, would achieve. The moment I laid eyes on them, in the midst of what would otherwise have been a delicate and sensitive story about fate and unrequited love, I wanted to reach into the screen and slap them silly.

Though the premise was interesting, the film grew tiring very quickly when every scene has to be repeated, almost verbatim, once, by the other leading character. That was simply a clumsy and sloppy way of showing how their lives parallel each other, and was very trying on the audience's patience. Effectively, the film could well have been cut into 50 minutes and be done with.

Perhaps I should say that the script writer and director should be lauded for their ability to take a perfectly interesting idea and making it uninteresting, and taking a cast for whom we would potentially have sympathy for and making them formulaic and laughable.

My impression of Turn Left, Turn Right was that it was light comedy without much substance. That being said, although the story is too "romanticised" to be realistic and the plot lacks depth, the movie still provided light and amusing humour. Laugh out loud moments can be found within this film, but if you come expecting too much from this movie, you'll leave severely disappointed. My views may differ from the views of whom this movie is targeted towards, as i am unfamiliar to the Asian movie scene and discovered this movie by chance. Though i have to say for myself that i enjoyed myself whilst watching this film, as at times mindless fluff can be very entertaining if you're in the mood.

Can this romance take place in another city besides Taipei? I am thinking about Paris, Prague, Venice, Istanbul, New York, St Petersburg, Sevilla (sorry, not London)… Tokyo? Probable but not very likely. In Asia, except Taipei, no city can provide suitable soil to let this seemingly mushy love story to germinate. I find it funny to see a young Japanese gal or guy reading Wislawa Szymborska's poetry in Polish language in Ueno Park. (Hong Kong? Oh, please don't ruin the whole enchilada.)

Takeshi Kaneshiro is definitely the baffled violinist but can someone think of some other actresses? Gigi is good absolutely but someone else may bring along different chemistry with TK.

The story is a mathematic and science illustrations. "Symmetry" was the word popped up in my mind when I finished the first ten minutes and "binary" is the next. What happens to them is like two magnetic iron pieces: both of them keep using the same side towards each other either always north or always south, so south and north cannot meet and stick together. Only twice, one side is south, another is north so they met, once at the park, another at the collapsed apartments. And what's the probability? I need to count the number of times they met but missed against the two times they met... difficult calculation. One more thing, symmetrically, both of them got a comical and clingy suitor: Dr. Wu and Ruby.

Jimmy Liao is pictorial poetic, he writes poetry with his illustrations. Pitifully, the movie adaptation more or less cannot totally grasp the air or spirit of his book.

Turn Left Turn Tight is based on the best-selling illustrated love story of the same name by renowned Taiwanese author/artist, Jimmy Liao.

The story revolves around dashing John Liu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), an inspiring violinist and Eve Choi (Gigi Leung), a professional translator. Like millions living in a large city, John and Eve lead lives of solitude. Despite staying in the same apartment building, their paths never cross. One day, while walking around a fountain in the park, they finally bump into each other... and it's love at first sight! Unfortunately, a sudden shower cuts the encounter short. They manage to exchange telephone numbers but the rain renders the phone numbers illegible.

Inseparable partners, directors Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai who have worked together on many projects like Running On Karma, Love On a Diet, Love for All Seasons & etc, manage to recreate the magic of Jimmy Liao's story on the big screen. Even the lovely soundtrack with three songs by Gigi Leung blends well in a 'supporting' role. The pacing of the movie is just right. The audience will be in constant anticipation of the couple's next meeting, as meddling acquaintances, a former schoolmate (Edmund Chen), a food delivery girl (Terri Kwan) and pure bad luck, conspire to keep the would-be-lovers apart.

Meanwhile the leads, Takeshi and Gigi, share good on-screen chemistry together, albeit briefly. Of course the two had previously appeared together in the 1999 romantic hit film, Tempting Heart.

Turn Left Turn Right is a charming movie worth watching at least twice.