A film by Shu Qi
Starring: Chiu Tse, 9m88, Bai Xiao Ying, Audrey Lin, Yu-Fei Lai, Liu Pin Yan, Chen Zhu Sheng, Liu Guan Ting, Zeng Pei Yu, Xie Qiong Nuan
Hsiao-lee, a young girl, finds comfort in her friendship with Li-li, who embodies the dreams that Hsiao-lee had repressed. However, Hsiao-lee’s aspirations are challenged by her mother’s past, which mirrors her own struggles and traps her in a cycle of despair.
Our rate: **
When star Shu Qi finds herself in the spotlight at the Venice Film Festival for her directorial debut, it naturally arouses curiosity. What does she have to say, show, or share with us, she who, before becoming the muse of Hou Hsao Hsien (Millennium Mambo, Three Times, The Assassin), started out at the bottom as a glamour model and actress in erotic productions, and whose career moved seamlessly from Ang Lee to Soy Cheang, Stanley Kwan and Hollywood studios, from erotic films to arthouse films, from horror films to blockbusters. The first images of the film set the tone, or more precisely direct the viewer’s gaze, which the film never leaves, that of a young girl lacking love and self-confidence, in a toxic family environment where her violent father drowns himself in alcohol every day and her mother also shows violence and neglect towards the little girl who observes the outside world with questioning eyes, as if constantly asking, “Am I the only one going through this?” She feels misunderstood, alone, and powerless to change the fate that awaits her. The form, particularly the rather shimmering colors and fluid sequences, maintains an atmosphere typical of films aimed at children, allowing the young girl to hold on to hope, a kind of faith that comes from the outside, ambition, despite the dramatic, inevitable, and fatalistic development. The whole thing leans towards a bittersweet naturalism, quite far from the harshness of a Pialat, a little closer to the societal perspective found in Hou Hsao Hsien‘s early films, a portrait of a family in a country, but in first-person mode. It’s interesting, right up to the end, when the young girl who has become a tennis champion asks her mother the question that has always been on her mind: why? But the competition aspect is somewhat overemphasized.
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