About Love (2005) - Taiwan/China/Japan Movie Review

About Love (2005-Japan/Taiwan/China)

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About Love (2005-Japan/Taiwan/China)

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A WKW meets Derek Yee Affair...

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HK Box office Taking: Not much

There is something about 3 segments movies, as it is becoming more and more fashionable today, with Three and Three Extremes in recent years and as well as Eros last month, comes one that is directed by three different countries directors expressing a similar theme of crossing borders love. It raises simple yet involving questions of globalisation between Japanese and Chinese marrying and the impossibility of love through sophistical language barrier. It is amazing to watch modern characters and directors, attempting to somewhat ape WKW's themes and merging them with normal romantic dramas, and adding the cultural differences in the mix, making About Love, almost a perfect three segments. The chance meeting of someone in your own country is already difficult, but to meet the one of your dreams in another foreign land is almost impossible. This segment raises questions as to rather it is possible for two to be together despite almost not being able to communicate and how a break up can change and impact on your life in ways that you will not endure or attempt.

The movie goes like this: Consisting of three vignettes about cross-cultural love set in three different cities (Tokyo, Taipei, and Shanghai), About Love is a film made by three talented directors with six fabulous young idols from Japan, Mainland China, and Taiwan. Cast includes Wilson Chen (Bluegate Crossing), Ito Misaki (Juon), Mavis Fan (popular Taiwanese singer), Kase Ryo (rising Japanese actor), Tsukamoto Takashi (Battle Royale), and Li Xiaolu (Golden Horse Best Actress for Xiu Xiu - The Sent Down Girl). In each segment, a foreigner and a resident, both in their twenties, try to transgress cultural and language barriers and explore something About Love. Beneath the three different types of relationships, there always lie something common that all couples need to go through - moments of uncertainties, confusion, and bittersweet tenderness.

Tokyo, by Shimoyama Ten (director of MVs for J-pop stars and Kindaichi TV series)
A Taiwanese student in Japan (Wilson Chen Bo-lin) yearns to become a successful digital cartoonist. One day he passes by a heartbroken young graphic artist (Ito Misaki), who possesses a quality that trigues him...

Taipei, by Yee Chi-yen (director of Bluegate Crossing)
A new comer from Japan in Taipei (Kase Ryo) who eagerly hopes for a one-night-stand receives a call from a local girl for help. He speeds to her place but only find out that his task was merely to help A-Su making a bookshelf...

Shanghai, by Zhang Yibai (director of Spring Subway and popular TV commercials)
A young Japanese (Tsukamoto Takashi) lives in the second floor of a general store in Shanghai. The landlady's daughter (Li Xiaolu) falls in love with him at first sight, but he still too filled with thoughts of his sweetheart in Japan...

Perhaps, it is just me being fascinated of the beginning of relationships, like the meeting, the chances, miss opportunities, what if you do this and you do that... Perhaps, it is, but nonetheless, it is human nature to lust for what they can not have, and the more you say to yourself that I can't like this person, the deeper you realise you have fallen into the trap of loving her more. Then you realise that you have only two options, endure a missed opportunity or simply just go after it, but life isn't so easy. The two options become millions of infinite possibilities - more regrettably, someone you brushed shoulder with one day, or after a chance meeting, you walk away without their number or contact, and no matter what you do, you do not bum into her again... Or perhaps, the only thing you can do is just dream on, and hoping that one day the randomness of life will bring you to see her once more, or perhaps not...

About Love is brilliant in its unique abilities of telling un-commercial stories, in a rater commercial manner, contradicting as it seems, all three segments follows the same pattern in a relationship and whereas some finally meet again against all odds, some can only do is nothing more than hope and dream on, after realising too late. Ito Misaki appears in the first segment, in a performance that one would call, devastating and her transition from depression to happiness is one process that many romantic films have negated looking into and here, we see the realism and the randomness of one's experience after breaking up. From dreaming on to realisation, it is a process that is both enduring and rewarding.

All in all, About Love, acts in a manner that as though all three segments seem to be connected - one or another. The similarity of the themes are extremely well portray and it is clear that to be together or even meet someone is never simple and the millions of invisible barrier that came before it - is both enduring and realising. After all, it is human nature to act tough on the outside and shattered in the inside, and just as life is contradictory, so is love. In mixing the style and manner of WKW and Derek Yee, this crossing borders romance flick is both tragic and uplifting and provides a perfect reminder to all those people out there lusting, that it is okay to lust, but sometimes, you just have to accept that it is all that you will get.