Sunday, May 20, 2007

Eternal Summer 盛夏光年


This is a story of eternal love, youthful turmoil, friendship, and a process of growth. It transports you back to your high school days, brings back all those sweet memories of youthful exuberance (okay, I'm speaking like a 80-year-old granny), when you can throw every caution to the wind and get away with anything. Did I mention, it was a story of gay love?

Jonathan (Bryant Chang) was a class monitor; circumstances led him to be beckoned by the teacher to be friends with troublemaker Shane (Joseph Chang) . Ten years later, Shane grew up to be a handsome young basketball player, and Jonathan into the best friend who watch his plays quietly from the side of the court but unbeknownst to Shane, who is secretly in love with him too.

Everything changed with the arrival of Carrie (Kate Yeung), the Taiwan-born Hong Kong transfer student. What follows is a tangled web of events that built up to the climatic mid point, and ended with a "???". I'm giving too much away.

The actors gave a solid performance as an ensemble, but retained an individuality on each of their character that you can't help but care. Kate Yeung possesses such an unconventional beauty that gets you noticed the moment she walked into a scene. Bryant Chang was fragile and torn at the same time, conveying such emotional aggravation of one-sided love that the audience can feel in the pit of their stomach. He won the Best New Performer title at the Golden Horse Award last year for this role, and deservedly so. Joseph Chang is shaky at best in the beginning. He made it up to the audience into the second part of the movie with his performance as a torn young college undergraduate who has to choose between the affections of his girlfriend or his best friend.

This movie is so much better compared to another movie, Formula 17, of the same genre that came out around the same time. The end leaves a lot to be desired. Yet it was still well worth the ticket price to see the performances of these young stars. I can imagine myself seeing more of their future movies in the cinema. Taiwanese films are making waves yet again.

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