Wang Talu – Windows on Worlds

Our Times’ Frankie Chen Yu-Shan returns to the tricky world of high school romance with an adaptation of the perennially popular ‘90s manga, Itazurana Kiss. Fall in Love at First Kiss (一吻定情, Yī Wěn Dìngqíng) is in fact the third time the manga has been adapted in Taiwan following a hit 2005 TV drama and a remake in 2016. Updated for the present day, Chen’s adaptation retains the manga’s trademark zany humour and often questionable approach to romance but imbues it with characteristic warmth and mild social commentary.

Our heroine, Xiangqin (Jelly Lin Yun), falls hopelessly in love with high school superstar Jiang Zhishu (Darren Wang Talu) when she accidentally trips and kisses him on her first day. Zhishu is, however, somewhat untouchable to a Class F no hoper like Xiangqin – Class A students like him have their very own building inaccessible to those without the proper credentials. Despite outsmarting the system in order to hand him her letter of confession, Xiangqin is cruelly rejected with a video of Zhishu’s cool response going viral among her friends. However, when Xiangqin’s house is demolished thanks to an extremely localised earthquake, she finds herself moving into Zhishu’s family home (it turns out their dads are old friends) where she might perhaps be able to get to know him better.

Like the original manga, Fall in Love at First Kiss revolves around Xiangqin’s lovelorn existence as she becomes increasingly obsessed with her apparently unrequited love for the sullen Zhishu whose behaviour is often hard to read. Zhishu’s mother (Christy Chung), a highlight of any adaptation, is a woman much like Xiangqin which is to say extremely cute and cheerful. Having long wanted a daughter she is delighted to have Xiangqin move in with the family and is virtually painting a nursery in the hope that Xiangqin and Zhishu might one day end up together. This is however partly because she knows both her sons are objectively awful – a pair of self-centred, emotionless hyper rationalists and overachievers who might be popular thanks to their successes but have few friends owing to not being very nice. She hopes some of Xiangqin’s unsophisticated cheerfulness might help open them up to the pleasures of being alive.

Zhishu, however, blows hot and cold. He ignores Xiangqin’s attentions until the point she vows to move on, at which time he kisses her to prove that despite everything he is still the sun in her mad little solar system. This is obviously not a very healthy relationship dynamic even as it insists that Zhishu’s arrogance is part of his “cool” rather than a symptom of his insecurity. Even his final declaration of love is shot through with “you know you want me” logic rather than a heartfelt explanation of his reasoning for having been so cavalier Xiangqin’s feelings. Nevertheless, like every other “difficult” romantic hero, we eventually discover that Zhishu is just awkward rather than actually cruel as he finds himself continually conflicted in wanting to be nice to people but somehow thinking it would be inappropriate to do so.

This is largely because he and his brother are snobbish elitists who’ve been led to believe that social inequality is the proper order of things. Xiangqin, a proud Class F sort of girl, wants to show him that they are all “on the same page”, equals despite what the “rankings” might say. Nevertheless she does this in a rather odd way by remaining deferent to his supposedly admirable qualities and following him around despite his constant rejections. In any case, Zhishu’s class conflict is at the heart of his emotional repression as he struggles with his filial duty to inherit his father’s company when what he’d really like to do is become a doctor to be able to help people – a choice he doesn’t quite feel he has the freedom to make and one which feels too warm and fuzzy for the ultra-capitalist, success at all costs philosophy he seems to have been brought up with by everyone except his cheerful mother.

Sadly Zhishu does not undergo much of a humbling and remains annoyingly successful and prince-like, while Xiaoqing does not suddenly discover her own worth or another purpose in life, but they do perhaps begin to find happiness in acknowledging their fated connection. Chen keeps the increasingly absurd action grounded as time moves on at frantic pace from high school first love to awkward grown up confession but manages to find the sweetness in a sometimes problematic romance as her lovestruck heroine does not much of anything at all other than remain true to herself in order to win her man.

Currently on limited release in UK cinemas.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

In the history of Hong Kong cinema, there are few films which could realistically claim the same worldwide influence as John Woo’s 1986 landmark A Better Tomorrow. Commissioned by Tsui Hark, the then jobbing director Woo was tasked with creating a vehicle for a veteran Shaw Brothers star. Casting Cantopop idol Leslie Cheung and TV sensation Chow Yun-fat, Woo mixed traditional melodrama with hyper masculine emotionality to give birth to what would become the “heroic bloodshed” genre which was to dominate the island’s cinematic output well into the ‘90s. A Better Tomorrow, as its title implies, is the perfect evocation of its era and among the first to express an oncoming anxiety for Hong Kong’s “return” to China then only a decade away. Slick and oozing with ‘80s, macho cool, Woo’s film captured the imaginations of young men everywhere who suddenly took to wearing sunglasses and trench coats while chewing on match sticks, dreaming dreams of heroism in a sometimes gloomy world.

Which is all to say, attempting to “remake” Woo’s masterpiece may well be a fool’s errand. It is however one which has been frequently attempted, not least by Wong Jing in 1994 and Song Hae-sung in Korea in 2010. Korean cinema has perhaps become the heir of heroic bloodshed with its inherent love of melodrama which often finds its way into the nation’s bloody gangster epics whose generally high level of homosocial bonding is perfectly primed for male honour drama. Ding Sheng, apparently a huge fan of the original Hong Kong hit, brings the tale north to the Mainland, relocating to Qingdao which serves as a trading post for the drug running route from Japan.

As in the original we have two biological brothers – Kai (Wang Kai), a “sailor” who has fallen into smuggling to support his family who are unaware of his criminal occupation, and Chao (Ma Tianyu) – a rookie policeman. Meanwhile, Kai also has a criminal “brother” in his younger partner Mark (Wang Talu), an orphaned hothead from Taiwan. Kai is a “noble” smuggler who refuses to traffic drugs but a Hong Kong triad boss is hellbent on fishing out his Japanese contacts and after a job goes wrong, Kai ends up getting shot and arrested by his own brother who is heartbroken to discover the truth. Spending three years in prison during which time Kai’s father is killed in a raid on their home by gangsters looking for info on the Japanese, Kai tries to go straight but finds himself pulled back into the underworld after coming into conflict with villainous gangster Cang (Yu Ailei) who has taken over the Japan route (and forced Kai’s old girlfriend into prostitution after getting her hooked on drugs).

Ding’s film, while replicating the plot of Woo’s original, attempts to bring it into the “modern” era in which the stylised, manly melodrama of the ‘80s action movie has long since been replaced by a finer desire for “uncool” realism. Ding does not seem to be making a particular point about modern China, other than in persistent economic inequality which has forced an “honest” man like Kai into a life of crime for the otherwise honourable reason of taking care of his family. Though this itself maybe a subtle reference to the post-90s world, the major anxiety seems to be more with cross cultural interactions and possible pollution of “good” Chinese men like Kai who have been led astray by the false promises of, for example, gangsters from Hong Kong, and the old enemies in Japan. Interestingly enough, the relationships themselves are formalised and superficial. In Japan Kai and Mark are entertained in a “super Japanese” bar of the kind which only tourists frequent, decked to the ceilings with cherry blossoms and staffed with “geisha” girls, while in China they take their guests to a bar which has Peking Opera going on in the background as entertainment.

Kai is fond of telling his sworn brother that everything in the world may change, but brotherhood remains the same. This turns turn out to be an ironic comment in that his natural brother, Chao, disowns him in shame and loathing after his release from prison. Nevertheless, Kai never gives up striving for Chao’s approval even whilst reuniting with Mark who has been crippled and reduced to cleaning boats at the harbour after trying to exact revenge for Kai’s betrayal. The trio’s manly honour code is thrown into stark relief by the amoral Cang who, claiming that “the world has changed” and loyalty no longer means anything, thinks nothing of shooting anyone and everyone who stands between himself and financial gain. If Ding has a comment to make, it’s that the traditional ideas of brotherhood, loyalty, justice and goodness are being eroded by the lure of foreign gold promised by corruption, exploitation, and an absence of morality.

Ding isn’t trying to match Woo’s grand sweep of tragic inevitability so much as aiming for straightforward crime drama but his occasional concessions to melodrama never quite gel with his otherwise gritty approach, nor do his unsubtle his homages to the original film which find Leslie Cheung’s iconic theme song becoming a frequent musical motif as well as prominently featuring at an ultra cool hipster bar located in a disused boat which plays his record on a turntable with a large picture of a grinning Chow Yun-fat behind it. A Better Tomorrow 2018 succeeds as a passible action drama, but one without the heart and soul that made Woo’s original so special.

Screened at the 20th Udine Far East Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Tag: Wang Talu

Fall in Love at First Kiss (一吻定情, Frankie Chen, 2019)

A Better Tomorrow 2018 (英雄本色2018, Ding Sheng, 2018)