Qi yue yu an sheng

Good story, good performances. The ambivalence of spirits is completely shown. Director Peter Chan is really expert at demonstrating the inside figure of characters.

The sequence of the story is amazing. The movie talk about the friendship between two friends that thought they will never be separated, and the boy friend of one of them who appears and change the path of their friendship.

The actors were splendid. Beautiful cinematics. I personally did not like how the tale unfolded and ended. But that has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. I think it is a gem. If you like this one you will for sure enjoy the rest of the movies Dongyu Zhou has acted in. I dare to say her more recent ones are better than this one. Watch Us and them 2018 if you need another but better doze off this movie. I like the realistic realness. I don't like when a story leaves you puzzled. Maybe it won't for you, maybe the English subtitles threw me off, but for me, I didn't quite understand all the aspects of how the story unfolded towards the end.

What I love most about this movie is the great length they took to depict the time period, the realness and livelihood of ordinary people living in China. There's no rich guy trying to woo the girl or a character who went from a loser to being the hero etc. It is just a story about the friendship of two girls growing up. But the way they have set up the plot is brilliantly captivating and fast paced, unlike most Chinese movie I've encounter. Not many movies have two women as leading characters. The ones that do come in mind are Thelma & Louis (1991) and Bridesmates (2011).

"That comes as a warning sign that there are concealed happenings which the movie deliberately keeps a lid on from audience, and Tsang's film is full of those masquerades and revelations, the movie ostensibly begins as an adult Ansheng takes a trip down memory lane after reading the titular novel published on the internet by Qiyue, which relates their stories from the very beginning, and the ensuing film blurs the line between reality and fiction, as there are two sources here, Ansheng's own recollection with fidelity and Qiyue's novel whose content could be only a figment of her imagination, and our perception of the story is totally under the manipulation of the untrustworthy narrative, to a point, the final reveal suffers from being too contrived and blasé, its impact is dented."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks