Vire à Esquerda, Vire à Direita

Turn Left Turn Tight is based on the best-selling illustrated love story of the same name by renowned Taiwanese author/artist, Jimmy Liao.

The story revolves around dashing John Liu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), an inspiring violinist and Eve Choi (Gigi Leung), a professional translator. Like millions living in a large city, John and Eve lead lives of solitude. Despite staying in the same apartment building, their paths never cross. One day, while walking around a fountain in the park, they finally bump into each other... and it's love at first sight! Unfortunately, a sudden shower cuts the encounter short. They manage to exchange telephone numbers but the rain renders the phone numbers illegible.

Inseparable partners, directors Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai who have worked together on many projects like Running On Karma, Love On a Diet, Love for All Seasons & etc, manage to recreate the magic of Jimmy Liao's story on the big screen. Even the lovely soundtrack with three songs by Gigi Leung blends well in a 'supporting' role. The pacing of the movie is just right. The audience will be in constant anticipation of the couple's next meeting, as meddling acquaintances, a former schoolmate (Edmund Chen), a food delivery girl (Terri Kwan) and pure bad luck, conspire to keep the would-be-lovers apart.

Meanwhile the leads, Takeshi and Gigi, share good on-screen chemistry together, albeit briefly. Of course the two had previously appeared together in the 1999 romantic hit film, Tempting Heart.

Turn Left Turn Right is a charming movie worth watching at least twice.

Turn Left, Turn Right (1994)

They are both convinced that a sudden passion has joined them Such certainty is beautiful but uncertainty is more beautiful still Since they have never met before they are sure that there had been nothing between them.

But what's the word from the streets, staircases and hallways ---------- perhaps they have passed by each other a million times

This poem perfectly encapsulates the essence of the movie. A movie about coincidence, connections about second and third and fourth chances. A movie about the power of destiny and yet at the same time about the power of uncertainty.

Moments and opportunities pass by us and often we fail to look at them, but they may come back to us. Hopeless or Hopeful, a romantic will always find a way.

Review written by artist jayakumar jrain.

Heung joh chow heung yau chow (Turn Left, Turn Right) is a heart-warming love story. There I said it. o0o0ps I gotta write a minimum of 10 lines? Alright, here goes.

It's a story of two person, who met in school & then lost contact, then met some few years after, only to lost contact again. Weird, but fascinating! They only know each other by their school identification number, they don't know other info i.e whereabouts, much less their favorite food, color, etc..etc.. Even the phone number they exchanged got lost.

Little did they know that they were destined to be together! They don't even know that they were very close to each other wherever they went. Say, when she was standing in a train, he was sitting down while reading a newspaper. Such a coincidence! Watch as they 'worked' hard to find each other. They did the same thing, i.e the way they talk, the way they they think, even their interests are the same too! The ending is too unbelievable but an original, nonetheless! I don't think audiences can figure out the ending!

I loved this movie. I caught only the last half on TV recently and tracked down the full film to see all of it. I am not familiar with the original illustrated novel though. It is a fairy tale for grownups, with humour, sadness, and a bit of slapstick. Lovely Gigi Leung plays her part of Eve Loi the romantic day-dreaming and slightly clumsy lover of poetry delightfully, and handsome Takeshi Kaneshiro plays the romantic, awkward and intensely shy John Liu to perfection. I was glad the corny temptation to resist naming them Adam and Eve was resisted. The symmetry of the parallel events is fun to anticipate, and the anti-symmetry of the two evil counter-characters adds to the complexity and a foil to the perhaps a bit saccharine sweetness of the main plot and characters The incidental parallel sub-plot of the avaricious landlords also meeting and exchanging phone numbers in the rain is a nice touch. I can forgive the occasional technical hiccups and goofs for the sheer lovely romance that it is.

Can this romance take place in another city besides Taipei? I am thinking about Paris, Prague, Venice, Istanbul, New York, St Petersburg, Sevilla (sorry, not London)… Tokyo? Probable but not very likely. In Asia, except Taipei, no city can provide suitable soil to let this seemingly mushy love story to germinate. I find it funny to see a young Japanese gal or guy reading Wislawa Szymborska's poetry in Polish language in Ueno Park. (Hong Kong? Oh, please don't ruin the whole enchilada.)

Takeshi Kaneshiro is definitely the baffled violinist but can someone think of some other actresses? Gigi is good absolutely but someone else may bring along different chemistry with TK.

The story is a mathematic and science illustrations. "Symmetry" was the word popped up in my mind when I finished the first ten minutes and "binary" is the next. What happens to them is like two magnetic iron pieces: both of them keep using the same side towards each other either always north or always south, so south and north cannot meet and stick together. Only twice, one side is south, another is north so they met, once at the park, another at the collapsed apartments. And what's the probability? I need to count the number of times they met but missed against the two times they met... difficult calculation. One more thing, symmetrically, both of them got a comical and clingy suitor: Dr. Wu and Ruby.

Jimmy Liao is pictorial poetic, he writes poetry with his illustrations. Pitifully, the movie adaptation more or less cannot totally grasp the air or spirit of his book.