Our Dream Car
Director: Evan Yang
Year: 1959
Rating: 7.5
Living in the heart
of New York City (yay Brooklyn!!), I don’t own a car – in fact I have never
owned a car and I have never really wanted to own one. I’d rather take the
money that people spend on insurance, gas, parking and repairs and spend
it on DVDs – let’s get our priorities right. But watching this movie made
me want to own one – I could picture myself zipping down the highway with
the windows wide open (and of course a smiling Grace Chang on my right!).
The film affectionately explores the thrill and excitement of buying, owning
and taking care of your first car. It’s a love affair. Of course, back in
the late 1950’s when this film was made (1959), cars looked so much cooler
and showier than they do now – big expansive American cars that my apartment
could fit snugly in and sporty little European models that make you dream
of Brigitte Bardot or Anita Ekberg – an automobile wasn’t just a utility,
it was a lifestyle and this film is a virtual salute to the cars from that
time period.
Many of these Cathay films seem to have plots that are small enough to fit
into a shoebox and yet they manage to build a warm apple pie story around
them that digs right into the center of your heart. They are very simple and
yet effectively draw the viewer right into the lives and homes of the characters.
Think of Air Hostess in which three young women join an airline and see the
world or Mambo Girl in which the protagonist discovers she was adopted and
spends a day looking for her birth mother or The Greatest Civil War on Earth
in which a Hong Kong based family and a family from the North comically feud
about food, language and culture. These films tend to be small in scale –
personable - almost slice of life stories in which the plot revolves around
the characters and the relationships they have with family, co-workers and
neighbors. With very subtle strokes the films create characters that are
very ordinary and yet very appealing and sympathetic. This is certainly the
case with this film.
A plot doesn’t get much more basic than this one – it is about a newly married
couple that buys their first car and how this ends up effecting their lives.
Nothing overtly dramatic takes place - just little bit of life that
could happen to any of us. Though the film initially may seem like a promo
for car ownership, in the end it seems to say that what really matters are
the people in your life – a car can get you from place to place but only friends
and family get you through your life.
Grace Chang and her husband (Zhang Yang – the boyfriend in Her Tender Heart)
of less than a year bump into an old beau of Grace’s (played by Kelly Lai
Chen) who tries to sell them a new car. The newlyweds who rent a room in a
home (owned by the always fun and rotund Liu Enjia) have very little extra
money to afford such a luxury – but Zhang wants to show Kelly that he is doing
well and so when he unexpectedly gets a small raise they decide to buy the
car. Once they do this they then realize that neither has a clue how to drive
and they both start taking lessons and spending their nights simply sitting
in their car dreaming about someday being able to drive it. Soon though the
financial pressures of making payments along with Zhang’s jealousy begin
to create problems between the two of them that they have to resolve. The
ending of the film is close to perfect and you just want to give them a big
hug.
Many of the individual scenes play out wonderfully well – simple things
again – figuring out their budget, watching their neighbor neck with her
lover, both selling their prized possession ala O’Henry – that feel very
natural and normal. Director Evan Yang (a.k.a. Yi Wen) made over ten films
with Grace – the most famous being Mambo Girl, Air Hostess and Sun, Moon
and Star – and he seems to be able to bring out absolutely pitch perfect
performances from her – she is just knockdown charming in this film. Yang
also gives the film a little technical pizzazz – using split screens
on one occasion, filming from overhead a few times and in one scene adding
humor by using a revving engine as the background music to a tiff between
husband and wife. This is a film though that would have looked so much better
in color - but black and white was still the norm for Hong Kong films (though
Air Hostess made in the same year became Cathay's first color film).
Grace only gets to sing two songs in this one – “Beauty and the Car” during
the opening credits and “Speeding” which she sings these great lyrics to her
husband.
This is only a small model
Although it’s light and new
It can’t compare to my new car
It’s so joyful going around the world
We go traveling on a sunny day
I’m so happy I can drive
We go up the mountains
And across the oceans
There are endless views to see
Be careful when the road isn’t smooth
Always watch your direction
Step steady on the gas clutch
No worries, no rush
I’m so skillful that I can drive fifty miles
per hour
I still think it’s too slow
Being such a skillful driver
I can drive as fast as I like without any worries
It’s like a rocket flying in the sky
I’m so happy that I can fly
Flying over the rainbow I desire to talk to
a cloud
The cloud flows in a thousand layers
It looks just like endless silver
I am so happy that I am flying
Marching in the car
I hope there is a brand new world
And I will forget all the troubles around me
Let’s have a joyful space trip
How could you not love a movie that has song
lyrics like this! I am just surprised that this hasn’t been made into a rap
song yet.
Of course, it sounds like Grace is a bit
confused if she is in this film or Air Hostess!
Though the DVD is suppose to be region 3 - it
is in fact all-region.