Al otro lado

Linlin - a young lady living in Shenzhen and going to school across the border in Hong Kong has dreams and plans that she wants to put into fruition - one of them is taking her best friend to Japan which she needs a fair amount of cash for, on the back of this - she decides a course of action which leads her onto a path of events she has ultimately, little control over.

Watched this little gem on the Sichuan Film Channel, well worth a watch and the main role features a future star of Chinese cinema - Huang Yao - she was superb in this.

Typically, As a coming-of-age story,the film focuses on the growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood, and as the CHINESE traditonal youth movie,there will ultimately demonstrate some specific factors,such as abortion/betray/gun/blood/fighting/suicide,etc. We all tired of that and no one is going to put up with it any more.So that is a big risk for me to spend 99 mins in the cinema after a long day at work. But the investments of time and money would prove worthwhile. Actually,THE CROSSING(GUO CHUN TIAN) avoid all of these usual old formula.It's neat and tidy and pure, just a Sixteen-year-old girl , Peipei attempts to earn money so that she can spend Christmas holidays at a Japanese hot spring with her friend. Of course it showed some factots sounds familiar to us,the divorced parents, neither of them cared about her,falling in love with best friend's boyfriend and then betrayed the orgination for him and so on. Luckly, the director has an excellent taste of expression, she found a special way to deal with those plots, used the detail of visual scene instead of letting characters speaking too many dialogues and avoided excessive performance.Besides,light and sound were handled so powerfully to enhance the affectiveness of the movie scene.

For example,the audiences must find theirselves nervous and fidgeting while watching Peipei and HAO tied the mobile phone to each other.We may expect something happens,but secretly pray it never occurs. There is no kissing and no hugging, no eye contact, just the behaviors, that's to say,the emotional had been restrainted, but we would be able to tell the secret meaning behind their actions, everyone could get the passing ambiguous emotions withing the red light and heavy breathing, the feeling of sensual had increaded through the very few dialogues.

I guess that's the right way to express the love of youth, it is done while it just happens. The pains,the love of the youth, the director made it decent and restraining and limiting, that's why it worths to watch. Precisely,there are also some drawbacks of this film,such as the suddely pause and the terrible music(yes that's so bad),some trivial shots should be deleted...but that's acceptable to a certain extent, as a debut. All in all,it's never too much to say it's a pleasant experience watching this film.

The movie talks about crime of smuggling that happened in real life. The directing and acting of the movie are both amazing. There is a scene that Pei Pei's father being with his own family. He saw his daughter and there is sadness in his face that he could not meet her at the moment and back to fake happiness with his own family. The cinematography of a car driving scene with Hong Kong City reflection on the windows is beautiful. Maybe because of female directing, the feeling and burning intimacy of both characters in a hot room is captured beautifully. Chicken soup for the soul: Never trust a man. Both daughter and mother get hurt by trusting a man and rely on each other in the end after Pei Pei being caught by the police. There is no snow in Hong Kong, but let's truly experience from what is in the Hong Kong.

Gave this a look on a flight from Taiwan to the states the other day and glad I did. Yao Huang is a great actress. She says a lot without saying too much. She took me back to being a teenager, all the danger and the rush and confusion. Hong Kong society fascinates me, and the place looks amazing on camera. The Crossing is a window into a world and a crazy time of life. Worth a look.

There is no buildup, no climax and no suspense throughout the film. The plot is just like going nowhere and never catches the attention of the audiences. The cinematography is pretty pretentious and amateurish. There are too many close-ups and most of the shots are repetitive and meaningless. There are no deep discussions into social issues or family life. The story follows strictly to the coming-of-age formula. The music is merely noisy and disturbing.