Poor Chasers
Reviewed by YTSL
This 1980 Taiwanese film should be of interest
to fans of Chin Han and Alan Tam (who portray good buddies, Chen Cheng Hsiung
and Fang Juai, in it plus croon a couple of songs with lyrics like “My heart
has a cloud. But you brushed it away” and “When will I see your candle
light?”!). Although she is the great unknown for me of the offering’s
four main cast members, Chan Chan-Ha probably has her share of admirers who
are happy to see her in her playing a part in this movie’s proceedings as
Li Lun Mei, the fluffier -- but also more mean-spirited -- half of another
pair of close friends. For my money though, the hands-down superior
show-stealing performances here come courtesy of the ever remarkable Brigitte
Lin Ching-Hsia (as a studious and sensitive soul named Shen Jung) and veteran
actress Gua Ah Leh (as her utterly honorable mother).
In much the same way as the relationship between
Brigitte Lin and Chin Han’s characters in “Red Dust” paled in comparison to
that between the Taiwanese film goddess and Maggie Cheung’s in that 1990
Golden Horse Best Film award winner, there is an emotional depth and palpably
powerful feel to the scenes in this at times heart-wrenching tear-jerker in
which both the younger and older women prominently figure that make all the
other relationships and characters in the work seem very light weight and
not particularly genuine. Consequently, POOR CHASERS works best --
and primarily comes across to me -- as a commemoration of the kind of strong
love that a mother and her daughter can have for each other (rather than
a celebration of romantic pursuit and passion or a meditation of the extents
and limits of even the strongest of platonic friendships).
Settling down to watch that whose alternative title is “A Pair of Silly Birds”(!)
this past weekend, I had not banked at all on the technically imperfect work
eliciting the kind of reactions and feelings from me that it ended up doing.
As a matter of fact, based on the review of POOR CHASERS at <www.brigittelin.com>,
I was expecting and looking very much forward to “[a] light-hearted Saturday
afternoon matinee” of a viewing experience. Early appearances -- this
effort gets going with three minutes worth of footage of a tennis match in
which “a couple of hams” find themselves getting handily thrashed by two
cute “girls” -- as well as that description to the contrary though, what
the movie soon developed into was the kind of melodramatic piece which involves
someone getting close to death (as a result of over-worrying about another)
along with others getting emotionally -- if not physically -- hurt and crying
buckets as well as reluctantly having to eat humble pie.
POOR CHASERS’ English subtitles initially identified the two females and
males who first met on a tennis court as school students. Although
she was actually twenty-five years old when this film was released, I was
totally willing to believe that Brigitte Lin’s character was a senior in
high school; so young did she look and also act (E.g., fresh-faced she can
be seen skipping -- as opposed to strolling or running -- along from one
side of the tennis court to another!). As it later became clear though,
the movie’s four main characters actually are supposed to be college seniors.
However, as can be seen from their all apparently succumbing to fall into
the throes of first love in this production, they can be far more naive than
one might expect them to be. Additionally, the kind of antics that
Shen Jung, Li Lun Mei and the two self-proclaimed “pair of dodos” -- who
got more than they bargained when they decided to romantically pursue the
pair of lasses -- are seen enacting really can seem downright juvenile.
Cutting to the chase: The main story in POOR CHASERS concerns one disgruntled
female using her best friend -- and also his best pal, including by way of
getting them to be opponents in what may well be the most inept boxing match
ever filmed! -- to take revenge on a fellow for his falling in love with
her frankly much nicer and lovelier best friend instead of her. An
associated sub-plot involves poor Shen Jung -- the only daughter of a laundry
woman whose unworthy husband had left her early in their marriage to fend
for herself and their child -- getting into a far from ideal situation in
which she feels obliged to weave lies about her mother as well as herself
(that she, of course, eventually gets made to regret).
However trivial and hackneyed all this may sound, I have to honestly say
that I bought into it, and in such a wholesale manner that I got to seriously
wondering whether watching old Brigitte weepies may be hazardous to my physical
as well as mental health! Lest it not be already crystal clear, I think
it is a pretty major tribute to the dramatic abilities of Brigitte Lin --
and, in this case, also Gua Ah Leh -- that I found myself taking a work like
POOR CHASERS as seriously as I did. Once again then, the woman who
members of the Chinese media designated as “Wondrous Beauty” has furnished
ample evidence of her being as able an actress as she is a stunning individual
to gaze at (for her looks alone, never mind the range of expressions that
can play on her -- yes, yes, I know I’m gushing here but oh hell! -- absolutely
adorable face).
This Brigittephile’s rating for the film:
6