The Garden of Evening Mists

I never read the book here, so I didn't know what I was in for when I stumbled upon the 2019 movie "The Garden of Evening Mists" here in 2022. I saw that the movie had Julian Sands on the cast list, and that was all I needed to know, as he is one of my favorite actors.

The storyline in "The Garden of Evening Mists", as written by author Twan Eng Tan and then made for the screen by writer Richard Smith, definitely was a beautiful and heartfelt story. It is difficult not to get swept away by the storytelling here and investing emotions into the characters and situations portrayed in the movie, especially since it is all so very realistic and down to Earth.

Director Tom Lin managed to put the script into a beautiful visual movie on the screen, one that I think will have a wide appeal to a broad audience. Because there is something for just about anyone to take away from a movie such as "The Garden of Evening Mists".

The movie jumps between Cantonese, English and Japanese language, but does so very nicely. And having these natural languages in the situations appropriate adds so much realism to the movie. And the movie also jumps between the past and present, letting the audience follow the characters in different times. This was also done very nicely, and brought lots of layers to the movie as well.

Something that definitely carried the movie a great long way was the cast ensemble. The movie has some pretty amazing names on the cast list, with the likes of Angelica Lee, Sylvia Chang, Hiroshi Abe, Julian Sands and John Hannah. It was good performances from the cast ensemble, and they brought the characters and story to life in a very enjoyable manner.

"The Garden of Evening Mists" was a pleasant surprise of a movie, one that provided me with genuine entertainment. However, I think the pacing of the narrative might throw off some viewers, as it is a somewhat slow paced narrative.

My rating of "The Garden of Evening Mists" lands on a six out of ten stars.

I have not read the book and as quoted from the story I saw this film "without prejudice" and found it excellent. It is not a perfect movie but it was based on a great story and the director told this story very well. The main cast did a fine job. It is slow paced as most historical dramas but was able to draw you into the mesmerizing tale set within a turbulent time.

This is a story of Yun Ling (played beautifully and seamlessly by both Sylvia Chang and Angelica Lee) who through series of flashback and present day scenes, tells of her experiences under the occupation of the Japanese during the second world war and apprenticeship under the former royal gardener of Japan, Aritomo (absolutely amazing Hiroshi Abe), after the war. The background to the movie is the glorious Cameron Highlands in the state of Pahang in Malaysia , the essence and beauty of it captured beautifully by the cinematographer, Kartik Vijay. The multicultural cast, consisting of mainly Malaysian, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and British actors, were just sublime and amazing under the direction of Tom Lin. Tom managed to capture the spirit and the beauty of the book of the same title by award winning Penang author , Tan Twan Eng. I had the absolute honour of being invited to the gala viewing in Penang (thanks to GL Ooi and Penang Monthly!). From the opening scene I was amazed that Tom Lin managed to capture the lives, hopes and fears of the people of Malaysia during and after the war. The multilingual dialogue truly exemplifies the multicultural melting pot of Malaysia. The philosophy of perfection in the creation of the garden just drives home the dedication involved in bringing the original source to life. When the end credits rolled, I was amazed to find out that the crews were mostly Asians... For me this is the truly Asian (Malaysian) movie and will deserve all the accolades that will be bestowed upon the cast, crew and the author of this movie. This is a movie that I will watch again and again and will never be tired of!

Not quite the movie I thought it would be, I expected it to be good and it was.... good enough to moderately satisfy. People say the story of comfort women in WW2. Much like the Holocaust, when you make a movie about a tough subject you better make sure you do it right. But I wouldn't even really say this movie was about comfort women AKA sex slaves in the Japanese Military. So while I liked it, it just about did its job, it doesn't really go above and beyond.

Its a very slow and quiet (mostly) movie that tells a story of a woman attempting to hire a Japanese man in post-WW2 Malaya to make the dream garden of her younger sister who was a sex slave. Anyway, won't wrote an entire synopsis but I will speak on the film itself. Its very well shot and the story managed to hold my moderate interest. There are some twists and turns at the end and while it was interesting semi-"climax", it didn't knock my socks off like some of the other famous film shock endings. And thats possible due to the writing of the characters, one character has her motivations and we sympathize with that, but thats about it. She's missing any sort of complication or nuance, its very clear what she's thinking and what she as a character is about. The other main actor is stoic und unreadable with small moments of humanity. While his intentions and secrets are revealed, it again was not enough to knock my socks of, because I only moderately sympathized and felt with the characters.

And the acting was passable for the most part. The Brits give a passable performance and so do the Japanese soldiers and Communist insurgents. But the main lead was odd to me. It could be the cultural divide as far as the expression of emotion, vocally and with facial inflection, but I didn't really care for it. And the films tone is strong, possibly too strong, possibly trying a little bit too hard? Not really sure but I liked it an any heavy handed shots and sequences didn't bother me too much.

All in all it was ok, I liked it, and I suppose people interested in the story of Comfort Women should probably look elsewhere, but fans of your typical romance/war setting film. Give it a shot.

This movie should be lauded for ambition. Tackling an issue like comfort women isn't going to be easy. Compound it with other heavy weights like loyalty, independence, then adding intrigues like the gold of Yamashita and trying to present them in a digestible package under 2 hours, the problem is obvious. The central love theme could not be developed convincingly. In a more assured hand like Ozu, the quiet scenes could have been really evocative. With some one like Kurosawa, the tension of the hanging, violence of rape or unstated pressure of recall etc would have been palpable. Instead it is presented rather without emotion. Even the pain of the tattoo just could not lift beyond the screen. But credit must be given to the producers and director for their attempt. Sufficient time has passed for the history of WW2 to be visited with an objective eye. Hope HBO would continue to put their resources into making such movies.