Welcome to the Internet Warrior's second-ever Random Movie Review. Last time, we talked about a Filipino romance flick, Sana Dati, the third installation of the Camera trilogy where none of those films connect to each other in any sense whatsoever, where it is about a woman pressured about an upcoming arranged wedding and convinced by a kind cameraman about her past and true choice in life, and was directed by a lunatic who has a fetish on warmongering generals and "Artikulo Uno's".
Today, we'll talk about an Asian romance flick, under the joint collaboration of Hong Kong and Singapore, where a man and woman's lives are separated by a thin wall blocking the two side-by-side rooms in a same apartment and always wind up in a same scene of their lives either a few feet away or otherwise but never cross paths whatsoever, because apparently, God wants to shit at them. At the words of Bruce Almighty himself, “God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant.”
This film for today was released in 2003 under the distribution of Warner Bros. and direction of Johnnie to and Wai Ka-Fai, based on the illustrated book A Chance of Sunshine by Jimmy Liao, and will change the way people look at romance movies for a while because this is a unique specimen that must be studied further. And by the absolute will of the “O Mighty Smiter” Himself, fate shall keep these two separate lovers from meeting each other. This is Turn Left, Turn Right.
The film takes place in a suburban area in Taipei, Taiwan where we start off with a violinist named John, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, who is desperately looking for a job. One time, he comes across a woman who offers him a ride home. However, she becomes too obsessed with John, so he immediately gets off and just decides to walk on his way back to the apartment. The following day, the same woman was waiting for him just outside, but he just ignores her and moves forward.
We then get to the second main character of the movie, Eve, played by Gigi Leung, who is translating foreign books into Chinese as part of her job. One time, she is given a task to translate a horror story into Chinese, and as a result, she becomes frightened and paranoid for the rest of the day. God, is she stupid enough to believe that nonsensical superstitions are real because she read a horror fiction? She must've read the novel version of Human Centipede, because trust me, that movie traumatized me.
For life.
Afterwards, we cut to a scene where an old man and woman who will serve no purpose in this movie exit from the apartment bump into each other after dealing some harsh issues back, before proceeding to real next scene, where John and Eve accidentally meet each other on a park after she dropped a bunch of her papers on the water fountain. And by the way, can you count how many times she dropped her papers on the damn fountain? Three times! Eve is already fucking stupid enough to believe the boogeyman is real as jack shit, but they make her so dumb that she has to be an extreme klutz to stumble and drop those papers on the same fountain over and over again. Hell, she even did that in a flashback!
Speaking of which, as we get to a flashback, John tells Eve his young days when he was in a field trip in the same park where he saw a lovely girl while riding a carousel and tried to make her notice him the whole time, but she never did. Later, he helped the girl pick up the papers she dropped on the fountain. But they didn't look at each other. Jesus! Wouldn't it be too much trouble to just look and speak up?! When the trip was over, before they left the train, the young John exchanged phone numbers with the girl. After that, he expected for the girl to call her one day, but that day never came. All he could remember about her is her camping number: 784533.
Eve tells the same story when she… Pfft. You know where this is going right? The young Eve was in the same field trip in the same park where she met a handsome boy and tried to make him notice her, but he never did. Later, the boy helped the young Eve pick up the papers she dropped on the fountain. But they didn't look at each other. When the trip was over, before they left the train, Eve exchanged phone numbers with the girl. But unfortunately, the phone number was inside her bag which she left inside the train, and that was she couldn't call the boy. By this point, I'm calling bull on this one, because even Mr. Bean, who also happened to leave his luggage in the train once in Mr. Bean's Holiday, wouldn't be as stupid as that dimwit. By the way, all she could remember about that boy is his camping number: 763092. Why did I just go so far to explain the same thing when we know what's coming?
That's right. It turns out that in their camping trip, the young John and Eve were actually infatuated with each other. But it took them several years for them to actually meet again in the same place. By the way, Jimmy Liao makes a cameo appearance in that scene. It's as if he predicted what's going to happen in this movie that was based on his own novel.
Later, the two had a little joyful chat, while Eve recites the Polish poem Miłość od pierwszego wejrzenia or "Love at First Sight" written by Wisława Szymborska, and John at the same time shows off his violin skills. Soon, rain heavily pours down from the sky and the two had to go home. After a brief scene with the old man and woman from earlier, John and Eve, without even BOTHERING to ask each other's goddamn names, exchanges phone numbers with each other, hoping that nothing terrible would happen to them.
But sadly, God decides to play a cruel prank at the two, so not only John and Eve both suffer with flu from the rainfall earlier, but also had their phone numbers go complete bust. Only very few numbers are visible. So they copied the scene from Mr. Bean's Holiday and calls several random phone numbers in vain hopes of finding the other.
One of the numbers they called is a restaurant that Ruby, played by Terri Kwan, works at as a waitress and delivery person. Both John and Eve, ill and not wanting to leave their home because they're afraid that they would miss the other person's phone call, decides to order delivery from Ruby's restaurant. Ruby falls in love with John at first sight when she arrives at his home to make her delivery. Seeing the smudged pieces of paper on both John and Eve's table, Ruby soon finds out that the two are trying to find each other. To distract John from the apartment located in the next building Ruby tells him the old lady lives in that apartment.
By the way, I would also like to point out that John is just stupid as Eve is. Not only does he not bring an umbrella in case of a heavy rainstorm when he wants to go outside, but when he gets the disease, he only now finds out that his medicine has been long expired. These middle-of-the-road bulls*** contrived conveniences in this movie are just as outdated as that flu medicine! Speaking of the flu, John's and Eve's diseases become so severe that they are both taken to the hospital, John by Ruby and Eve by an ambulance. They both meet Dr. Hu, played by Edmund Chen, but the doctor happens to be a former University classmate of Eve's, who has a crush on her. Dr. Hu is a creepy, over-obsessed stalker whose purpose in this film is to constantly tell Eve that it must be fate that they met each other again. He then proceeds to check her into the hospital to get the best care possible, while discharging John from the hospital, changing his mind only when Ruby argues with him about how severe John's illness is. Both John and Eve give their home keys to Ruby and Dr. Hu to set up voicemail at their home in case the other person calls.
Once John and Eve are cured of their flu and leaves the hospital, they were horrified to find out that Ruby and Dr. Hu respectively had literally moved into each of their apartments. By the way, the way Eve dislikes Dr. Hu and the fact that she has to bleach the showers repeatedly and throw away her stuff he touches are hilarious as all hell. Although I have nothing to say about Ruby being a rugby fan and having to go crazy while watching it on John's television.
John and Eve decide that if they go to the park where they meet twice in their lives, they could have a chance to meet again. Unfortunately, God comes in and shows us His middle finger as the place was being cleared away and demolished. To treasure the most precious moments in their lives, they bring home a carousel horse. With the help of Ruby and Dr. Hu of course.
But, both make it clear that they are not interested in them since they already love someone else. Heartbroken, drunk and sobbing to each other Dr. Hu and Ruby decide to get together. Taking revenge on John and Eve for breaking their hearts, they send pictures to them showing how many places they had missed finding each other. Every picture shows scenes where John and Eve are always there, either a few feet away, in a huge crowd, in parallel directions or otherwise, but they never cross. Jesus Christ, would it cost too much trouble to just look in eight damn directions?! Do these numbnuts have stiff necks or what!?!
So, John and Eve find Dr. Hu and Ruby to talk about the pictures they had received in the mail. Ruby gives Eve's phone number to John telling him it's her number to test if she was ever in his heart and Dr. Hu does the same to Eve, but they do not call at all.
After all this tension building up, John and Eve are extremely frustrated that they can't interact whenever they're literally in the same scene and conclude that they are not really meant for each other, so they decide to take their jobs abroad, John to be a violinist in Austria and Eve to be a publishing translator in America. Aww, you two can't go now! We can't let the "Oh Mighty Smiter" Himself sucker-punch us again in the ball sacs and separate your destinies together forever!
The night before they are about to leave Taiwan, the two finally get each other's numbers. They try to call but could only give voice messages. As John and Eve hears each others' messages of farewell and confession (and for some reason, they also don't bother saying their names at all), they break down and run outside in completely opposite directions, trying to find each other but they fail to do so. Giving up, they mope back to their apartments.
At the climax of the movie, John and Eve try calling each other one last time. However, God becomes much ruder that he doesn't want them to see each other alive again, so an earthquake strikes and shakes the apartment. And to make sure this is the awaiting climax that we're all waiting, each time they push a button on their telephones, the rumbling gets stronger.
The earthquake destroys the wall that separates the two rooms they're living, and finally, at the last minute of the entire film, John and Eve manage to see each other again and share a heartwarming reuniting hug. So, the two cradle in each other's arms, the authorities come in to check the damage on the apartment, and the movie just… ends. That's it. No aftermath, no conclusion, it just ends right there. And then it's roll credits. We don't even know what happen after that, but I assume that John and Eve say their final goodbyes, move on and leave Taiwan to focus on their career. If that's how it really ends, then I say: congratulations, God! You just made Mao Zedong look like Cinderella in comparison! That's quite an accomplishment! Go f*** yourself.
If I want to really bring out my honest opinion about this movie, I can say that it's a pretty bold choice to attempt this kind of unusual romance movie, especially when it's based on one of the best-selling romantic novels in Taiwan. This is not the usual cuddly snuggly kissy adorable romance flick. This is one where it does something different and takes on a polar opposite route. Instead of two lovers finding each other and sharing the story together, it's two lovers trying to find each other but simply couldn't in this tale of hope and despair.
For a stand-alone movie by its own criteria and judgment, I would tell that it's a decently good movie on its own thing. It's not a great film, but it's not terrible either. The actors to perform those roles are good choices, but there are some scenes which some of them play out confusing and awkward. The character development for John and Eve are okay, but they could've gotten more of a personality rather than just hopelessly trying to find their significant other. The cameo appearances here are unnecessary, although Jimmy Liao managed to pull out a good one there. I gotta give the movie credit though for balancing the flow of the film's progress between entertaining and frustrating. There are many scenes I can remember which I got either a smile or a laugh at when I first watched it.
Overall, it's good. In fact, it's a movie that succeeds in being both a beautiful and a tragic movie. It's a tale which shows that fate can be tough, cruel, generous, loving, careful or destructive. It can throw you in without having you to expect it in times of comfort or tribulation. If you want a completely different kind of love story, I recommend giving this one a watch, because trust me, this will be worth your 100 minutes. I guarantee it will leave you both satisfied and flabbergasted at the same time.
So, to conclude this review, I give away today's question to the people reading here right now:
If you want a different kind of love story, one that is not Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, what would it be?
Leave your interesting and creative responses in the comment section below. And don't forget to add me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube or DeviantART.
But thanks for reading today's Random Movie Review! I'm the Internet Warrior and I approve this message.
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