You yi tian

It was delightful to see the revival of Taiwanese Cinema in these couple of years, but I have to say regretfully that there weren't many which still left me strong aftertastes a few months later. The problem is that I can't recall if there was any sincerity in the storytelling. Mostly, they felt like products which tended to arouse the sympathy of the audience through demonstrating the tragedies in the present society. They probably needed to be known, but the intentional purpose itself sadly made the products feel cheesy. I really hate to judge films from my own country, especially as a heavy movie buff, but I feel that I should express how I truly feel instead of only telling the good sides.

However, this debut by the new filmmaker Hou Chi-Jan feels a lot different. The producer Zoë Chun-Jung Chen, the screenwriters Hou and Kelly Yuan-Ling Yang are all first-timers. Only the film editor Liao Ching-Song and the sound engineer Tu Du-Che are the veterans from the Taiwanese Cinema New Wave in the 80's. So this is a nearly new-blood creativity that I was happy to see, and it was even beyond my expectations.

The story is about a girl meets a boy on a ship to the satellite island of Taiwan called Jin- Men(means Golden Gate literally), but it's not just a love story as it appears to be. When something strange happens, the girl was left along with the boy and an Indian who comes out of nowhere in the ship. As she feels like being stuck in a nightmare, the boy confirmed it. So what happened beforehand or will happen afterward start to be revealed interactively.

Easily, the mysterious and tense scene in the ship reminded me of David Lynch, and it makes perfect sense since this is a story intensively related to dreams. The sudden cuts and distant shots also reminded me of the new Palme d'Or Thai director Weerasethakul. Thankfully, it's not a rough imitating which it could easily turn out to be, but an idea that borrowed from the skills and still kept the filmmakers' creativity. Most of all, I was very glad to feel the earnestness I could hardly get from the new films of my own country. Even it has no big scales like a few other big hits do, it simply surpasses them with this important fact.

Dreams have always been something filmmakers are fascinated about but not really often seen in Taiwanese films. After being highly noted by the realism built up by veterans such as Edward Yang and Hou Hsiou-Hsien, who notably is the executive producer of the film, that inherited the Italian masters like De Sica and Rossellini, I believe it's about time to transfer the homage to the other equally divine Italian masters like Fellini and Antonioni and show the world the diversity of Taiwanese Cinema. It's neither the best Taiwanese film nor a perfect film having said that, but it's surely a huge first step.

One day we met, except it wasn't on the same day. A dream, a soldier on a ferry tells a girl she was going to become his lover. A girl wanders in Taiwan, and met the soldier who probes within her dream, yet he was now a school student...

A film which entices utter melancholy through its emptiness...Its a truly rare gem. A film which transcends to the seldom realm of nothingness yet still capturing a fragment of familiarity in all of us, like a deja vu perhaps. Its airy, almost transparent in ambiance, which leaks the substantial reality and the dream-like state into a big mesh. The funny thing is, you give up trying to decipher the enigmatic mess after halfway and learn to just sit back and enjoy a beautiful piece of composition even with a baffled mind. It allows you to feel what you see then structure it, and thats the raw beauty of art-house cinema on an overall aspect. Its a film that you can't really put a critical mark upon it, because its a composition of emptiness; devoid from meaning, space, time and substance; yet it does this flawlessly. There's a beautifully warped nature about it; something almost ethereally claustrophobic and alienated in its stunning visual embodiment. Tranquil water, an empty ship,a quiet learning centre, the film execute its material with a stunning use of tone to stimulate an emotion, a memory a mood.

Aesthetics wise, its a commendable effort for a debutorial film. It took a lot of effort to pass the first 5 minutes without turning it off, yet after that i had no doubt it was the blue print of a great exemplar. Its not in any sense a perfect film, but it flawlessly struck every chord of the tune. If this is the director's first envisage i am waiting with great anticipation to see what he brings to follow such a rare masterpiece.

I saw it second time. Thank god it looked better and I like it more than earlier. Maybe because this particular movie might require to be seen twice.

Well, the movie was a romantic-drama with backdrop of time leap theme. The layers may confuse us, so it requires a serious attention while a watch, sometime re-watch might help for some people to understand it properly. I was not liked 'Inception' that much, for me it was a usual Hollywood action movie with layers in it. But this movie was mind blowing, portrayed like an art. The pace was slow, those who used to it will not find any difficulty but for others, patience must required.

It was all about the blooming love between two young people, Singing and Tsung, who is having the same dream on the same day but a year gap to each. Yeah, just like the movie 'The Lake House'. What does the dream mean and do in their real lives is the movie and its rest of the portion. Sometime it was a tough call or to guess between the real and the illusion of the story's plot. Still I felt they should have tried something different ending. The existing one was very ordinary but thought it's better than making a very commercial. Some dialogues were very cool and romantic. The movie shot on the right season, every place showed on the screen were so calm and beautiful.

I have seen very few good Taiwanese movies and it was one of the best in those. There's no much difference comparing it to a Chinese or a Hong Kong movie, after all they are all Mandarin or Cantonese. Yes I think it is underrated but not a must see movie. It is a rare and quality movie, I know some people would love it as much I did and I believe that might be you.

8.5/10