Here in Singapore – or it could well be anywhere in the world – we are suffering from a severe movie dry season. There are just not enough movies these days that entice the Movie Review Squad to get out of our homes and do something. For close to two months, three of us would have our weekly meeting over Whatsapp going through the agenda items of (1) are there any good movies to watch this weekend, (2) are there any good movies to look forward to the week after? No and no. We, at the virtual headquarter of MRS begins to wonder: has piracy finally killed off the entire movie industry? Or is it the decline of our Singapore film distributors not willing to bring in quality films from other countries? What happen to the Japanese or Korean movies? European movies? Or these markets too suffer from the same dry spell? No idea. We are sad pandas indeed.
Now comes the Chinese movie LOVE, staring a bunch of well known actors including Shu Qi and Vicki Zhao. There are a multitude of characters all consciously or subconsciously looking for love, embracing love. Each character comes with an individual story – a story that is weaved into an overarching story of … you guessed right, love. There is a little boy who has not met his father since birth. A real estate agent who appears to prioritize supporting her family over anything else. A woman who has never had a job in her life, always receives financial support from men. A business executive who does not know what is love. Two girls, best friends of each other, and one of them is pregnant. A young man whose dream is about to be shattered by one mistake he has made. An old man who is rich beyond imagination but he is not always happy. And finally, a young man whose stuttering affects his physical outlook, but well compensated by his kindheartedness and childlike attitude to life. The story is tight, a quality piece of script writing. The acting is good too. There are scenes that tickle. And there are scenes that move.
I do not know how to classify LOVE. It is a tragedy, yet a comedy. It is romance, yet drama. I think it is best described as a movie about finding love through the extraordinarily unexpected.