R E V I E W :   Wishful Milenio 

Reviewed 5/7/01 | Background | Movie Review | DVD Review | Recommendation

Background 

Deltamac / 2001 / 87 minutes
Directed by Bosco Lam Hing Lung
Written by Bosco Lam Hing Lung

At first glance, a drama about the romantic lives of four female friends would not seem to be the natural turf of director Bosco Lam Hing Lung. After all, this is the man responsible for Chinese Torture Chamber Story, Spike Drink Gang, The Three Lustketeers, and House of the Damned. Perhaps that is why the film received a delayed and extremely brief cinema run before appearing on DVD.

The film played briefly (three days) in (presumably) one Hong Kong cinema in March 2001, raking in HK $3,370.00 (a little more than US $400.00).

Movie: plot, performances, production, rating

Plot: Four friends share a house and romantic adventures in this drama set in 1999 (but made in 2000 and released in 2001). Ha Yan prefers to be called Summer and is proud of her promiscuous and free lifestyle. Lin (also called Tong Li in the subtitles) is cool and aloof but becomes warm and excited when she meets famed Taiwanese travel writer Loi Lee, with whom she has been carrying on an anonymous e-mail correspondence. Lin's young cousin Xiao Cuan has a crush on a Japanese soap opera star named Kimura. One day she bumps into a look-alike on holiday, and is instantly smitten. Finally, Chew Nan has just been dumped by her latest beau and is frustrated because her desire to be the 'perfect girlfriend' has been ruined again. She runs into a woman named Felix, who is very friendly to her in a way that makes Chew Nan distinctly uncomfortable. The love lives of the four friends play out.

Note on the character names: The DVD box cover states that the four friends are called Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. That may be true in the original Cantonese, but the subtitles use the names as noted above in the plot summary.

Performances: Some of the performances became a bit annoying and were overly predictable, but to a large measure that's the fault of the script. Within the context of the story, the four lead actresses did a fine job. Here, though, my limited knowledge becomes apparent: I'm not sure who played who! I'm pretty sure it's Yoyo Mung who plays Summer and Astrid Chan who plays Lin (also called Tong Li). As to the characters of Chew Nan and Xiao Cuan, it's either Man Chung Han and Kelly Chen Po Yu (or vice versa). In the supporting cast are Emile Kwan Po Wai, Tony Cheng Ruei Che, Tony Ho Wa Chiu, Auguste Kwan Teik Hool, and Tats Lau.

Production: As noted above, the script does not provide too many surprises and also allows the couples to fall in love suddenly and seemingly without sufficient motivation (other than the need for the story to move along). It descends too often into soap opera conventions (how convenient that one of the characters is in love with a soap opera star). The very beginning of the film also seems to hold promise of a lighter touch that the director is not able to maintain. Despite these criticisms, I didn't throw things at the screen or fall asleep (more than once). Maybe that's because it was a nice change of pace from the action films I've been seeing lately, or maybe it's because the actresses are lovely and easy on the eye.

Rating: Category IIA. Some profanity and specific talk about adult subject matters.

DVD: look, sound, subtitles, and features

Look: The letterboxed (approximately 1.85:1) presentation looked good. The film's palette is limited so the colors are not vivid, but the black levels are sufficiently deep and the flesh tones are natural. The source print looked very clean.

Sound: The audio tracks are available in DD 1.0 (mono), but this is not a big negative in view of the low-key nature of the film. I listened to the Cantonese version and it sounded fine; a Mandarin track is also provided.

Subtitles: The white removable English subtitles are easy to read and well timed. None of the errors in the translation (mostly misspellings) detract. Also available are traditional and simplified Chinese subtitles.

Features: Nine chapters can be selected from a still frame menu. The original theatrical trailer is on board.

Buy, rent, or pass?

Rent. Though too melodramatic and ultimately weepy for my taste, it was a nice change of pace and definitely not a waste of time due to the fine performances of the four principals.

P.S. Support Hong Kong filmmaking! If just 40 people buy this DVD, the film's proceeds will double (at least).

 

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