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Review
by Kozo: |
It's A Chinese Ghost Story meets the works of Bettie
Page! With The Crying Game and Wong Kar-Wai thrown
in for good measure! Director Yeung Fan AKA Yon Fan, maestro
of such gorgeous works as Bishonen and Peony Pavilion,
brings us Colour Blossoms, the movie that asks, "What
would you do to entice your dream lover?" Or perhaps
it asks, "Is pure love impossible?" Or, with regards
to lead actress Teresa Chiang, it could be asking, "Would
you believe the body on this forty year-old woman?"
If those are your questions, then Colour Blossoms
may have your answer. Just don't expect it to A) make sense,
or B) matter, because this movie does neither.
Teresa Chiang (Kenny Bee's
notorious ex-wife) is Meili ("Beautiful Woman"),
who lives up to her name and then some. The wide-eyed, hot-bodied
Meili is a realtor whose life changes when she meets the
melodramatic Madam Umeki (Matsuzaka Keiko). Umeki buys a
house from Meili, then foists her Lan Kwai Fong apartment
on Meili to rent to someone else. The big issue: this is
one gorgeous apartment, and Meili won't rent it to just
anyone. Luckily, someone who isn't just anyone shows up.
The guy is Kim (Japanese model Sho), a young photographer
who appears out of nowhere and begins saying hilarious existential
things to Meili. She's disturbed, but becomes more attracted
to Sho when the other guy in her life, Officer 4708 (Carl
Ng), starts disturbing her even more. The rock-handsome
4708 barely speaks, touches objects in a vaguely erotic
fashion, and glides on his feet like some sort of voyeuristic
law enforcement mime. Meanwhile, the colors and costumes
are faaaaabulous. Is this art?
If it is, then it's not good
art. Whatever Meili is going through is something that occurs
only to her, because it doesn't reach us on this side of
the screen. Teresa Chiang turns in a daring and even beguiling
performance as Meili, a woman who's searching for love and
is all-too-willing to explore her darker side. Maybe. Even
though she's attracted to Kim, and is enchanted by the increasingly
insane-acting Madam Umeki, she also finds time to entice
4708 with her bare breasts and try on some S&M gear
to see what it imparts on her squirming-to-be-loved soul.
You see, in the world of Colour Blossoms, S&M
does two things. One, if gets the unnaturally sexy Teresa
Chiang (who, if we must remind you, is over forty years
of age) into fantastic leather outfits. Two, it creates
meaning. Or at least, that's what director-writer-photographer
Yon Fan wants.
One interpretation of Colour
Blossoms is that S&M represents the inherent subjugation
one must experience when they allow love into their lives.
Love does wacky things to people. They become promiscuous,
change their sexes (Korean actress and famous transsexual
Ha Ri Su shows up as a young Madam Umeki), and generally
act completely off the wall. Nobody in Colour Blossoms,
from Meili to 4708 to Madam Umeki seems to exist in a fathomable,
reachable world. Love, lust, and pain can apparently drive
you to incredibly desperate extremes, so much so that you'll
kill your lover, then trap their spirit in your insanely
decked-out apartment, whereupon they can return to engage
in S&M antics with someone else years later. You'll
also start to overact relentlessly. Matsuzaka Keiko deserves
an overacting award for her over-the-top histrionics as
the haughty Madam Umeki, but to actually match the level
of her overacting, the award would have to be fifty feet
tall and weigh about three thousand tons. That may sound
excessive, but that's pretty much what Colour Blossoms is: excess.
Granted, it's beautiful excess,
and can make great background chatter at a wine and brie
party. Yon Fan is a celebrated photographer, and extends
that attention to both visuals and sound for Colour Blossoms.
Everything looks and sounds absolutely stunning—it
just doesn't make any sense. Not that a movie truly has
to because one of 2004's best films, the animated headscratcher
McDull, Prince de la Bun, didn't make much sense
either. However, that film had feelings and emotions that
actually reached the audience, and that's where Colour
Blossoms fails. There's apparent passion and poetry
in Colour Blossoms but none of it seems to make it
off the screen. A lot of details get thrown out, and perhaps
they mean something, but the film does not provide the incentive
to figure it out. It's incredibly dense, emotionally cold,
and moves at a glacial pace that makes Wong Kar-Wai seem
like Michael Bay. Yon Fan has probably driven himself to
ecstasy with the elegance and loaded existential meaning
of his work, but it would seem that getting the same experience
requires telepathy, or maybe a thick 600-page guide to Yon
Fan's world. Hell, maybe Colour Blossoms and its
bizarre cast of characters does mean something. Maybe Madam
Umeki represents regret, Meili represents sexuality, Kim
represents desire, and 4708 represents the wilting flower
of innnocence. But honestly, I didn't get that, and I don't
care. (Kozo 2005) |
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