Lü cha

The beginning of this movie was quite interesting and made me expect something more, but I was a bit disappointed.

First of all, I have nothing to complain about the actors, they did very well. Also the visual image was nice, I still very much like the pictures of tea leaves in a glass spinning around, it was beautiful. Although I sometimes didn't like the editing, that wasn't the weak spot either. It was the plot. The story that was interesting in the beginning turned out to be quite one dimensional and predictable. It leaves a bit empty feeling after watching this.

This isn't a bad movie, however it's not enough to be original or memorable. And that's what a good movie is about.

Don't pay attention to the star rating, this movie was one of the picks of this years Rotterdam festival. I found it rather confusing at points and this was made no easier by some apparently rushed subtitling, hopefully this will be resolved if it is more widely released. The story centers on a world weary man who becomes obsessed with a serial blind-dating student, who bears a resemblance to a nightclub singer/pianist. The film has the same interesting plot twists that can make new Chinese cinema so good, but benefits enormously from external cinematography courtesy of Chris Doyle. The acting is engaging and the soundtrack excellent. A definite must see if you have an interest in new Chinese cinema.

One of the first things you need to know about this film is that its cinematographer is Christopher Doyle, the man responsible for the look of most Wong Kar-wai films: saturated colors and extreme camera angles. You'll find them here. He was also the cinematographer on Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), one of the most beautiful films ever made. With that in mind, you have a pretty good hint that with Green Tea you're in store for something a little different from director Zhang Yuan.

This is a beautiful film, a colorful love poem to, about, and starring, Chinese actress Zhao Wei (a.k.a. Vicki Zhao). The woman is photographed so adoringly it's almost creepy. She plays two different and distinct roles in the film: a bespectacled graduate student and a sultry piano lounge singer—so librarian fetishists and jazzy drunks alike can fantasize out loud. The funny part, though, is that we're supposed to play along with the notion that donning a pair of bookish glasses suddenly makes Zhao one of those women "who become attractive over time", ya know, ugly. Yeah, right.

Zhao's graduate student character, Fang, is a serial blind-dater, anxious to marry, unwilling or unable to rid herself of a guy who is pretty sure she will become attractive over time. She does. So much so that when he meets her doppleganger, Lang, in the piano lounge, a woman reputed to be 'easy', he finds himself ever more drawn to Fang—probably because she is so hard. He is sure they are the same woman but Lang denies it and they strike up a friendly relationship filled with discussions of life and love. There is mature sexual politics running throughout the film for those who can't ingest ice cream without meat but you needn't get bogged down by it. This film is so thick on the surface its depth becomes muted. Beyond the ambiguous nature of the doppleganger scenario, there is also the story Fang relates to her suitor—which runs the length of the film infusing all the characters—about a friend who reads people's fortunes in tea leaves, who may or may not actually be Fang, who witnessed her mother kill her father, and stuff like that. Fang suggests she might just be making it all up. Her suitor doesn't care because fact and fiction reveal equally, but it starts to get complicated when details of the story begin to emerge in the real life of Lang ... who may or may not be Fang.

Green Tea is a gloriously gorgeous and fun ride. It's arty and complicated, maybe a little loose. The conversations and games of cat and mouse are witty and smart but at times you may find yourself more interested in trying to peer around something which seems to be in the way of what is being photographed than in piecing together the story. Stuff like that happens in this intelligent romance.

Jiang Wen and Zhao Wei star in what is probably the most sophisticated romantic drama to hit the film world in years. Fresh off a breakup from his fiance, Chen (Jiang Wen) becomes infatuated with the conservative, mysterious, and story-telling Wu Fang (Zhao Wei) after a blind date. As two polar opposites, both are lonely, depressed, and looking for love. How they go about it and their reasons for doing so are the primary forces that drive the movie. Jiang Wen delivers another great performance as the quirky and sometimes timid Chen, and Zhao Wei has shown that she is becoming increasingly versatile as an actress. Also features beautiful, lush cinematography from the always eccentric Christopher Doyle and a perfectly fitting score from Su Cong. This is not your cookie cutter romantic film. The humor is sparing, the emotions are real, and the sexual tension reaches an all time high. Highly recommended. 10/10

The first movie I watched starring enigmatic Chinese actor Jiang Wen was during a business trip to KL, catching a show at KLCC before my late afternoon flight. In Warriors of Heaven and Earth, he donned a moustache and beard as the charismatic leader Lieutenant Li, in a movie which had great premise but a lousy story to tell. As for Zhao Wei, unless your head was buried in sand, you wouldn't have missed the era in the late 90s where she was bombarding television sets everywhere in her role as Little Sparrow in My Fair Princess Huan Zhu Ge Ge.

So I guess putting them together in a movie made it almost irresistible to not want to pick up this DVD. This was actually a precursor to their Warriors movie where they collaborated again, but in this modern setting, based upon a short story "Adiliya by the River" (what the heck is Adiliya?) by Jin Renshun, they star as a pair of wannabe lovers looking into exploring if they could be together.

Sweeping aside the age gap, this movie is one heck of a mindgame. It's frustrating at times as nothing actually happens, and the lead characters just sit around and talk about stuff absolutely not related to anything at all. Well, at least not directly related to what's happening on hand, but telling stories - we're sitting through a story with characters telling stories, fictional ones which doesn't really add depth to plot, or characterization. It's pretty strange stuff.

And strange are their characters too, with the only realistic moment is the beginning - if you're looking for a stranger in a cafe, and there are two ladies, who would you approach first, the hot one, or the plain looking one? Chen Mingliang (Jiang Wen) went for the jugular, but it was actually Wu Fang (Zhao Wei) who was his blind date. They don't start off well, and continued to bicker. One's become obsessive with her conservatism, while the latter is a serial blind-dater.

But there is more than meets the eye to Wu Fang, and herein lies the guesswork to decipher who she actually was, and the motivations behind what she is doing. You can boil it down to PMS, or to the wall being built around her heart, or to just plain old psychosis. Whatever the case is, it's about persistence and the relentless pursuit of who you like, and on the other side, to spice things up with playing coy, hard to get, and being more of a mysterious enigma.

Nothing much to take away in less than 90 minutes, except to admire the two lead's ability to act and play off each other, and Christopher Doyle's cinematography (he makes tea leaves in hot water so sexy), which is a bit of a waste in a movie lacking in strength of story. I hate to say this, but the repetitive score is a bit irritating.

Code 9 DVD contains zero extras. The sound was quite bad, with plenty of echo, like speaking in a vast enclosed space. The transfer was bearably decent, but the subtitles seemed to look as if it has its bottom thinly shaved off.