Deja Vu
Director:
Dick Cho
Year: 1999
Rating: 5.5
One subject that
continues to fascinate me is the argument regarding chance versus fate. Is
much of our life drawn out beforehand or is it completely dependent on the
whims of chance – whether you turned left instead of right or paused to look
in a store window (Comrades: A Love Story! – ah, but was that fate?). I go
by this second theory in which every life has a million roads that it can
go down and every road taken effects many other lives in a different way.
A few films have tackled this subject recently as they have depicted a number
of alternative lives that could have taken place but for some small thing
of chance. Sliding Doors, the excellent German film Run Lola Run and the
HK film Too Many Ways To Be Number One all did this in a very interesting
and thought provoking manner.
Déjà Vu ventures into the
realm of chance versus fate, but unfortunately not with nearly the same results.
Though the beginning of the film is promising, the script turns out to be
a fairly lackluster love story and the film just trudges along for quite a
while before it is resolved. In the end though, the film seems to say that
no matter which road you take, fate is there waiting for you.
The film follows two versions of the lives of Teresa Lee and Vicky Zhao-wei
– who are two cousins living in Shanghai. One day on their way up an escalator
Teresa Lee trips coming off and bumps into Nicky Wu, while Vicky then bends
over to help and trips up Peter Ho. In the other alternate version, it is
Vicky who trips and meets Nicky while Teresa and Peter hook up.
The film then jumps back and forth between the two parallel universes and
shows how each life and relationship would have been played out. The Teresa/Nicky
relationship soon fizzles, as does the Peter/Vicky one – but the other alternative
life appears headed for a happy ending (for those who believe in happy endings).
But the question I kept asking myself was which of these versions was the
real one. Though I basically like happy endings, the cynical side of me was
hoping that at the end – the film would go – oops – sorry the “real” version
was the one in which nothing much happened – but for one little wrong trip
all their lives could have worked out well.
Instead though in the end it basically says that no matter which girl tripped
– eventually fate would bring them to where they belong. Not that I buy that,
but it is a possibility I suppose. Even so the film has very little spark
– much of the reason for this residing with the two male leads. Nicky Wu
sings a few songs and he sounds pretty good to me – so I hope he is a singer
first and an actor second – because I continue to find him so monotonous
and uncharismatic as an actor while Peter Ho, who was decent if not great
in The Truth about Jane and Sam, just comes off as smug and annoying (and
badly in need of a haircut!) in this film.
So I can’t really understand the girls being interested in them in either
life! Both the female actresses do a good job, show some life and are fun
to watch interact with one another. I much prefer seeing Teresa Lee in this
type of role rather than her miscasted portrayals of cops (Big Bullet and
Extreme Crisis). Vicky Chiu is a new face to me – but she shows a lot of
energy and personality on the screen and creates an interesting character.