Autumn Moon

Viewed December 23, 1999 on video

For full information about this film, click here

An interesting film with international ambitions but just doesn't stay in the mind.  25-year old Japanese tourist Tokio (Masatoshi Nagase) comes to Hong Kong in search of cheap goods, sex and authentic Chinese food.  He runs into a school girl, Li Pui Wai (played by Li Pui Wai -- which I don't quite get) and they foster an unlikely relatioship.  It helps that the girl's grandmother is a damn good cook.  From there the narrative weaves their awkward but cute relationship with Liu's blossoming romance with a shy schoolboy and Tokio's initially casual but eventually meaningful affair with an older Japanese businesswoman.  There are heartfelt exchanges alternating with resentments and misunderstandings, so that it all feels kind of slight in spite of the unique premise.  This is definitely the kind of film that gets pushed all around the festival circuit, expecting to be liked for being hip and cute, with superficial lessons in sociology and people struggling in foreign tongues to be understood.  Maybe I'm so ambivalent because part of me wants to make this kind of movie, wanting to avoid the hokiness but wondering if it can be avoided.  I think I'll have to watch this again and take careful notes on what I do and do not want to emulate.

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