Perhaps Love
Back in the 1960’s Hong Kong film was awash in
musicals – colored candy dreams with big musical numbers or intimate tender
songs of love. Between the film studios of Cathay and Shaw Brothers
these had the biggest female stars, the best singers and the best song
writers contributing to some of these lovely showcases of talent. But it
was for the most part a short burst of creative energy and by the end of
the decade the musical genre had nearly vanished from the big screen. Audiences
wanted realism, sex and violence and musicals have never been very good
at delivering those elements – they just don’t mix together that well.
People watch musicals to generally escape from realism, to live in a fabricated
world where people break into song to express their emotions and where
a happy ending is almost always guaranteed.
On rare occasions a musical has been produced
since then such as the 1994 “I Have a Date with Spring” or the festive
“Ninth Happiness” with Leslie Cheung. Other films like “He’s a Woman, She’s
a Man” have taken place within the music milieu and included some musical
numbers and other films like Stephen Chow’s “God of Gambler’s III: Back
to Shanghai” and “Kung Fu Hustle” have haphazardly and joyfully broken
out into a musical number to wonderful effect. Yet none of this has spurred
a return to the musical genre. It has especially struck me as unfortunate
because of the tremendous cross-breeding that takes place in the Hong Kong
entertainment world between acting and singing. So many of the major actors
are also popular singers – Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Sammi Cheng, The Twins,
Leon Lai to name a few – and even ones with little apparent singing talent
like Cecilia Cheung have had musical careers launched. So I have always
thought it would make perfect sense to utilize all this talent in a musical
and was eagerly looking forward to Peter Chan’s “Perhaps Love” with Takashi
Kaneshiro, Zhou Xun and one of the Sky Kings, Jacky Cheung.
Regretfully, the great Shaw director, Inoue Umetsugu,
is no longer available for directing duties having died many years ago
because his light touch, pop sensibilities and frothy emotions are sadly
missed in this film. “Perhaps Love” is beautifully shot (not surprising
considering the talent behind the camera – Peter Pau and Christopher Doyle)
and well acted, but it is so gloomy, leaden and lifeless that it exhausts
one to watch it. Love weighs down the characters like a cinderblock and
never allows the film to breathe or overcome gravity. Love has rarely felt
so plodding. And this is seemingly quite intentional on the part of the
filmmaker – the film is not about first love but instead about unrequited
love that is strangling in its pessimism. This isn’t necessarily a bad
thing, but unlike Wong Kar-wai who has made the pain of unrequited love
an art form, the emotion generated here is only skin deep – all lovely
show with little depth and there is no sense of regret or sorrow engendered
by the viewer. At no time do you feel any particular sympathy or affection
for the characters – there is simply too much distance created by the format
of the film to ever feel close to them.
Admittedly, part of my disappointment has to do
with my expectations of what a musical should be – and Chan doesn’t adhere
to this which is obviously his choice. He wanted to create a dark layered
story of modern angst that is full of shades of gray and not very likable
characters, but for me musicals are simple explosions of exuberant emotion
whether joy or sorrow – when the earth suddenly comes to a shattering stop
for a few glorious minutes of dance, fantasy and song in which everything
true is laid bare. Almost all the great musicals share this in common –
they are emotional roller coasters of ups and downs – of delirious song
or broken-hearted ballads, but “Perhaps Love” is a constant stream of morose
pondering – why doesn’t she love me, why doesn’t she love me more – and
there is not a glimmer of joy anywhere to be seen. Musicals can be depressing
and glorious at the same time – watch “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” for
an example – but there have to be snatches of sparkling happiness in there
to feel the sorrow and Chan never allows this.
A lot of this could possibly have been overlooked
had the music and the dance numbers been more inspiring as opposed to merely
serviceable. There are nine songs – all performed by the actors – but none
of them are particularly memorable. They feel much more influenced by Broadway
music than film music – and the four sung by Jacky Cheung all have a dramatic
warmed over Andrew Lloyd Webber taint about them. Jacky is such a strong
singer that he overwhelms these songs and one nearly expects to see The
Phantom of the Opera come out of the wings – while both Takashi and Zhou
are nearly buried by their arrangements. All the songs are part of the
movie within the movie and so no one breaks into song just for the thrill
of it. The dancing is also something of a let down, especially considering
that they brought in Farah Khan as the choreographer. Farah is the top
choreographer in Bollywood these days – the genius behind the dance numbers
in “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham”, “Dil Se”, “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” and many
more as well as the director of the very fun “Main Hoon Na”. But one has
to wonder what the point of dragging her from India was after seeing the
dances – any MTV choreographer could have done as well or as badly to be
precise. The dancing is almost non-existent and often flashes by before
you can register it.
The narrative has a certain “Our Town” structure
with a narrator (Korean actor Ji Jin Hee) introducing and concluding the
story by talking directly to the audience and occasionally getting involved
in the songs and the story as various characters (reporter, waiter, driver,
projectionist) though in truth I didn’t really see the point of this other
than giving the proceedings a theatrical flavor but this also contributes
to the artificial feeling that constantly seeps into this film. It begins
in style – the narrator gets off a bus on an empty dark street, then suddenly
overhead lights come on, snow begins to fall and you realize this is the
set as it comes alive with music and dancers and it is probably the high
point of the musical numbers as it is an old-fashioned tribute to the magic
of the movies. A film producer (Eric Tsang) is bringing together various
talents to make a romantic musical in Shanghai – he hires Nie (Jacky Cheung),
a well known auteur director, who is full of misgivings and insecurities
about making this kind of movie, the lead actress is the Mainland star
Sun Na (the wonderful Zhou Xun) who dreams of going to Hollywood and who
believes there is no such thing as love and the lead actor Jian Dong (Takeshi
Kaneshiro) is brought from Hong Kong as the romantic love interest. There
is emotional baggage though everywhere – the director and the actress are
an item – he discovered her and made her a star but is fearful of losing
her. It turns out that Jian Dong and Sun Na had an affair ten years ago
before either was even in the film business (and were much less attractive)
when he was a film student in Beijing and she was a chorus girl in a low-rent
troupe of entertainers. She refuses to address any of this and wants to
keep those shoddy memories in the past where they belong.
Jian Dong though has never gotten over her and
the way that she left him and wants – no, desperately needs - to rekindle
their romance and bring some closure to the empty hole inside him. The
film they are making co-incidentally echoes this relationship – it’s about
a woman who has lost her memory and can no longer remember her lost love
and is now in love with a circus master and both films go back and forth
between the past and the present. Part of the weakness of this film is
that the movie they are making looks to be so dreadfully bad that you can’t
take anything seriously – circus performers? Didn’t that go out with Fellini?
The acting is fine and the close-ups of Takashi and Zhou are nearly worshipful,
but there is little opportunity for them to show much range – though both
of them look lovely sulking and staring into space. Or kissing underwater.
I am no doubt being too hard on this film – I hoped for so much more –
but it is well-produced with some technical brilliance surrounding it,
a serious adult love story and gorgeous to look at – but it left me feeling
nothing – other than a desire to watch “The Band Wagon” or “Ziegfeld Girl”
or maybe even “Hong Kong Nocturne.
My rating for this film: 6.0
As a note: If you are a Zhou Xun fan, I highly
recommend you get your hands on the difficult to find “Baober in Love”
– she is amazing as is the film.