The Garden of Evening Mists

As a Malaysian myself, it was odd watching such a well made film; in fact I would go as far as to say that I am equally astonished and blown away by this movie as it was just so darn good. Well, the movie has been called a heartbreaking love story, although that is true in a certain manner, I think the more proper branding of the movie would be self-healing.

Firstly, I must acknowledge the themes thrown around in the movie, and to me personally it would be the anger and the hatred towards the Japanese post WW2, and as an individual whom has grown up knowing that Japan were known as some of the most respectable and polite individuals on the planet, I found it hard to understand the hatred that was shown towards them still amongst the Chinese community and after viewing this movie I can say that I can kind of see the anger and resentment felt towards them still. But yes, as mentioned before this movie is about self-healing so in the end, we can't continuously allow the past define the way we see life or how we treat others; sure, there are some few rotten apples here and there but the sample size is simply unsuitable for us to judge an entire community based on the few experiences that we have lived through. Thus, the importance of love, mercy and grace.

Okay, on with the praises I have regarding this movie. Cinematography is incredible, my gosh what a beautiful movie. However, I believe that it is so mainly because of the location the movie was shot too and these scenes revolving around the vast environment of Cameron Highlands aren't exactly artistic shots but the imagery within the Japanese house where the garden is located is absolutely stunning.

Although the movie looks stunning, I must bring attention to a certain scene within the movie where the scene could've been better shot which is the scene where the main character, Teoh Yun Ling ponders upon her sister's photograph and the scene plays out in such a way that it felt unnecessary to have a close up on the picture again as it had been done in the earlier part of the movie and the next cut is of her reacting to that picture. This probably isn't an issue for the vast majority but it felt unnatural to me and it stood out too much to my liking. Furthermore, the first 15 minutes of the movie felt choppy to me, this could've been a personal nitpick.

The acting on the other hand, this is a difficult one to comment upon as it was good but as this movie was labelled as a romantic movie, I went in expecting some serious chemistry between Teoh Yun Ling (Angelica Lee) and Nakumuara Aritomo (Hiroshi Abe) and since this movie focuses on the pain Angelica Lee's character, Teoh Yun Ling experiences during the Japanese invasion of Malaya during WW2, there is constant tension between the two characters due to her prejudice against the Japanese people. But looking past all that, I must say that she did a wonderful job portraying a strong character but at the same time broken, she absolutely nailed all the emotions required in each particular scene and her performance truly nailed this movie home and even brought me to tears.

All in all, this was a heartbreaking movie, I went in with some form of expectation after seeing the number of awards it was nominated for at the 56th Golden Horse awards and this movie definitely delivers and this is a movie worth catching in the cinema.

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 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!

Were there moments while I was watching this film that I became distracted way too many for my taste but after the movie was finished I actually sat back and thought about it I'm not Asian and I know that Asian people like so many other people approach things differently based on their culture this was not a movie to excite or entice it was not to show the comfort women or the incredibly cruel Japanese army Or the downtrodden Malaysians or even the upcoming communists or for that matter the colonizing BRITs it was basically a love story a strange one but a love story and when I was pondering that I thought how that could apply to anyone anywhere that has faced adversity and who has come out of it one way or another so I was very touched by it and I'm very glad that it was made and I was able to view it.

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.