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Review
by Kozo: |
Truth or Dare: 6th
Floor Rear Flat is a film that could have starred
a lot of big-name popstars. A thinly-disguised metaphorical
tale of urban HK youth, Truth or Dare has existential
dilemmas, unrequited loves, career anxiety, and more
than enough room for over-the-top popstar mugging.
In the hands of a director like Joe Ma, the film could
have had a candy-colored production design and fast-motion
wackiness to spare—but Truth or Dare does
not. The film eschews saccharine melodrama and Cantopop
excess for a quality that could best be described
as actual filmmaking. This isn't a diss on Ma's Feel
100% films (which are largely good despite their
silliness), but it's about time that an HK youth comedy
featured more buzz than bombast, and more wit than
wackiness. Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat
is such a film.
The 6th Floor Rear
Flat portion of the title refers to an actual
flat that's the cheap-living solution for six vividly
different HK youngsters. Karena (Karena Lam, who continues
to impress with her emotional range) is a budding
writer who finds her muse in her editor Jason, who
she only knows through their phone conversations.
Despite the fact that he could be hideous-looking
or a cult member, she falls in love with him. Candy
(Candy Lo) is a fortune-teller who uses tarot cards
to ply her daily trade. She pines for love, and finds
herself between two eligible beat cops (William So
and Edwin Siu) who are also partners. Wing (Lawrence
Chou) wants to pursue his dream of music, but his
parents want him to give up and go back to medical
school in the US. Jean (Patrick Tang) wants to make
money—fast. Bo (Sammy) is a go-nowhere actor
who professes to be gay but is still smarting over
being dumped by his first love. And Leo (Roy Chow)
is the student of the group, who seems to be the most
together, but holds an obvious torch for Karena.
Though they all should
be figuring out their long-term gameplan, the pals
spend their time holding "Truth or Dare"
parties in their flat and obsessing over their personal
issues. It's at one of these parties that the ultimate
dare is placed: each of the residents must achieve
something daring or grand within a year or be required
to, uh, ingest feces. As crazy youth are likely to
do, they agree and seal their personal goals in empty
bottles to be evaluated one year later. What follows
is your standard year of Feel 100% issues,
as each pursues their personal goals and finds room
to grow, change and/or find their way in the world.
They all achieve those goals, thus saving themselves
from the humiliation of eating human waste, and they
all live happily ever after. Cue mega-mega happy ending.
Well, not really. It
would be incredibly false to allow each and every
character the opportunity to grow and change over
the course of 100 minutes, just as it would be false
to actually have them realize their success and/or
failure as some sort of cinematic ephiphany. Growth
is a natural process, and the characters experience
it just that way: naturally. Though the year is fraught
with opportunities for wackiness, mugging, and hijinks
of your usual Hong Kong variety, those things never
seem to happen. The characters muddle through in a
relatively light, easygoing fashion, letting their
lives happen while trying to justify what they're
doing on a day-to-day basis. The result: a somewhat
contrived and obvious youth film premise that actually
comes off as real and even gratefully earned. Lessons
are learned and conflicts are met, but the results
are not hackneyed summarized pearls of wisdom. It
almost feels—and here's that word again—natural.
Truth or Dare: 6th
Floor Rear Flat was brought to us by primarily
two people: producer/writer Lawrence Cheng and director
Barbara Wong. Cheng is probably better known for his
fey characters from such films as Tom, Dick and
Hairy and Inspector Pink Dragon, but his
pedigree of annoying performances belies the thought
that went into Truth or Dare. While possessing
of some overt devices (voiceover!), and a rather loose
narrative (where is this all going?), Truth or
Dare actually possesses far more subtlety than
one would believe. This is probably due to Barbara
Wong's direction, which is remarkably controlled and
measured, and actually seems to employ some sense
of technique. Instead of milking scenes for punchlines
or payoffs, Wong concentrates on dialogue and performance.
The actors are usually kept in check, and even the
more outgoing performances (Patrick Tang can be gratingly
energetic, and Candy Lo does her share of mugging)
feel like real personalities and not your standard
"Wah!" style of Cantonese comedy acting.
Unnecessary music and style is thrown out the window,
and character and situation rule the day. It's almost
like someone went to film school.
Not that the film is devoid
of fun moments. Some wackiness does exist (Candy imagines
her two suitors as Nameless and Broken Sword in a
parody of Hero), but it's remarkably tied to
character. Though Candy may be given to flights of
fancy (she actually has three fantasy sequences),
other characters like Karena, Leo or Wing do not.
The film never seems to betray its characters emotions
or personalities, such that even the more hackneyed
moments manage some affecting reality. Songstress
Teresa Carpio has a fine cameo as Wing's mother, and
though her big scene feels more than a little manufactured,
the characters' reactions do not. The film's respect
of its characters earns the occasional contrived moment,
and even makes up for the inevitable narrative tying
up of loose ends. Some of the situations reach their
expected climaxes, but the film still manages to affect.
Still, not everything
is tied up. Though Truth or Dare features many
familiar situations, the film seems to be more about being young than issues of youth. The eponymous
flat has a rather obvious metaphorical meaning, and
when everything is stripped away it seems that whatever
happened needed to happen—simply for the sake
of experience. No real answers are provided and no
stunning pearls of wisdom (like "be true to yourself"
or "friendship rules!") are dispensed. The
journey made here isn't much more than a minor step
forward in the lives of these characters, and not
the life-changing epiphanies that most youth dramedies
are given to. Also, the loose narrative may not cohere
for some, and the film is hardly new as nearly everything
in its genre has been done before. But the film still
finds room to surprise and entertain, a rarity among
films of its type. Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear
Flat isn't new or evolutionary, but it is genuinely
funny and affecting without being overbearing. The
film's refreshing natural style, well-drawn characters,
and ultimate acceptance of its own inconsequence make
it an unusual and welcome antidote to the usual cheesy
youth dramedies that Hong Kong produces. Joe Ma, are
you paying attention? (Kozo 2003) |
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