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Not a Zhou Xun film, but a Great Film with Zhou Xun
I saw this once around 2022 and forgot I saw it. I re-found it because of Hu Ge and 20 minutes in started vaguely recognizing it. I'm so happy the wife and I decided to watch it a second time.
And so how could I almost completely forget this particularly good movie?
1. When I watched it the first time, I was likely mad she wasn't the star but merely supporting. I had just finished RUYI and was starving for more of her work.
2. I might have been tired, and the movie runs long.
3. My memory ain't what it used to be. (But that's a fun thing with movies. I can watch again but remember very little, lol.)
This story would be perfect were it not for a simple flaw: mildly contrived. I won't spoil, but it requires someone misunderstanding who someone else is and two young characters doing something a little odd at first. What the older girl does is frankly ludicrous UNTIL the end of the story reveals why she is doing it.
As a former screenwriter, I'm also annoyed by stories that feature writers. In almost all cases a screenwriter writing about a writer flatters said writer as a 'good writer'. Do you see how insecure this is?
Picture a screenwriter thinking about what their next story will be. "Oh, I know! I'll write about someone like me -- a writer!" Painfully unimaginative. Writers must observe others and then writer about them. Naval gazing is too common and almost always dull as hell -- except in LAST LETTER. The cliches are there, but thankfully barely painful and flattering.
Once you get past these two issues, wow -- what a story! A family loses an adult daughter and very quickly family secrets start oozing out. These aren't fun soap opera moments but tragic real life stuff. I won't spoil, but three generations have to deal with the passing of this daughter and things get rather intense. Not violent, not melodramatic -- just people dealing with choices that changed their courses of their lives.
The acting and film production is solid. The movie is a little long but it doesn't feel that way. And I bet most viewers would have liked even more time in this story: namely, to see if the surviving daughter's dream came true. I hope it did.
This isn't about happy endings as much as reckoning with your past and future.
Give it a try!
And so how could I almost completely forget this particularly good movie?
1. When I watched it the first time, I was likely mad she wasn't the star but merely supporting. I had just finished RUYI and was starving for more of her work.
2. I might have been tired, and the movie runs long.
3. My memory ain't what it used to be. (But that's a fun thing with movies. I can watch again but remember very little, lol.)
This story would be perfect were it not for a simple flaw: mildly contrived. I won't spoil, but it requires someone misunderstanding who someone else is and two young characters doing something a little odd at first. What the older girl does is frankly ludicrous UNTIL the end of the story reveals why she is doing it.
As a former screenwriter, I'm also annoyed by stories that feature writers. In almost all cases a screenwriter writing about a writer flatters said writer as a 'good writer'. Do you see how insecure this is?
Picture a screenwriter thinking about what their next story will be. "Oh, I know! I'll write about someone like me -- a writer!" Painfully unimaginative. Writers must observe others and then writer about them. Naval gazing is too common and almost always dull as hell -- except in LAST LETTER. The cliches are there, but thankfully barely painful and flattering.
Once you get past these two issues, wow -- what a story! A family loses an adult daughter and very quickly family secrets start oozing out. These aren't fun soap opera moments but tragic real life stuff. I won't spoil, but three generations have to deal with the passing of this daughter and things get rather intense. Not violent, not melodramatic -- just people dealing with choices that changed their courses of their lives.
The acting and film production is solid. The movie is a little long but it doesn't feel that way. And I bet most viewers would have liked even more time in this story: namely, to see if the surviving daughter's dream came true. I hope it did.
This isn't about happy endings as much as reckoning with your past and future.
Give it a try!
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