Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

jeremy-giroux First of all, if something has to be written about this film, it's about the poetic way the director talks about teenage problem in Asia. The story, about a young man and two young girls is really close to the "2 girls and a boy" type and at the beginning, you can be afraid that the film would be like a boredom teenage movie, but be confident, it's not and so go on watching it... The love story is about teenagers who don't love the right person (the girl who loves her classmate who is also a girl, who loves a young man, who loves the first girl) and the thing which makes it interesting is the fact that the story is not focused on the three people but only on two of them who try to create a false couple (as their love is not mutual and shared). This couple transforms itself in a kind of friendship, born from incomprehension.How sometimes destiny makes us meet some people by chance, those who will be essential to our lives. That's the real topic of this movie. Little by little, the girl, who's afraid to love girls and the guy, who's afraid to be alone start to know each other and to love each other, even if they'll never be a couple. The movie is good because of that way to treat teenage relationships and also by the quality of the image.The work on image is really really good. Some sequences are quite splendid (like the first sequence or the one with the two main characters on bicycles) and the music is also really good (a simple piano theme). The actors are really incredible and fit absolutely their characters.The whole charm of the movie lies in the real fragility of teenage relationships and on how life is taken by these characters : complicated, light and sometimes quite incredibly beautiful.

lost-in-limbo Two Taipei teenage girls who are best friends like to talk about boys at school and one of them has a crush on this boy. Though the boy starts talking to the one who doesn't like him and he thinks she likes him, but there's a twist. This film from Taiwan is a simple but a lavish coming to age story about love and sexual preference, with some nice touches of drama and comedy in the mix. The context of the film is hardly in-your-face or confronting- but subtler in the approach, as it's more on the effect it has on the three teenager's friendships and to what's right in society. There's not much of a story in it, well it does show the confusion faced when teenagers first come across love and that's expressed in the dialogue and in some engrossing scenes- but it does show the lack of plot after an hour or so. Though the characters are well thought out and quite convincing and that's because of the touching chemistry and superb performances from the two leads Lun-Mei Guey as the confused teenager Meng Kerou and Bo-lin Chen as the naive Zhang Shihao and this is what keeps you glued to the screen.As well it looks visually stunning and great in detail, from the school grounds to the nightlife of the city. This is a nicely handled film, without trying to force-feed us the morals of love and sexual preference.

Harry T. Yung Some spoilersMaybe it's because I had an over-dose of Korean romances in the last few months, it was exhilarating to watch this Taiwanese gem about coming of age, which I found to be exceptionally refreshing.Very briefly, the story explores the development of the relationship between two high-school kids. She tries to act as the messenger for her best friend who has a crush on him while he is interested rather in her. Then, it gradually comes out that she is troubled by uncertainty of her own sexuality, of whether she is lesbian and in love with her best friend.During the earlier part of the film, it is easy to be fooled by its apparent simplicity and the nearly moronic dialogue. Then, it gradually becomes evident that what the filmmakers have tried to do is to create a very realistic juvenile world. It is then when the film starts to resonate with experiences that we all had once, some recently, some much longer ago.Through completely honest depictions, the characters all of a sudden become very alive. We are also touched by the director's attentiveness, in small things such as the girl nearly tripping over a chair on one of the occasions when she on her way out of the house, something that does happen in real life very often. Two scenes I particularly enjoyed (which is probably also many others' choice) are the `shuffle' scene and the telephone call. The first cleverly shows the mental confrontation and subsequent reconciliation of the two in disruption and subsequent re-arranging of some of the chairs in the assembly hall. The second one, at the beach bon fire at night, shows for the first time deeper emotions of the girl as she weeps over words spoken by the boy not heard by the audience.Behind the superficial simplicity is a great deal of subtlety. The film is open-ended, provoking rather than dictating thoughts, and the ending is delightfully upbeat. In the end, whether this is friendship or love between the two doesn't really matter. With their youthfulness, there will always choices and possibilities.An amazingly wonderful film to watch.

up_and_out Yes, this is a Taiwanese "art film"; and it does explore an old and worn theme - coming of age in high school. However, it does so in a tender, unusual way. Additionally, it tells a teen lesbian awakening, still now quite daring material for film from that part of the world. But, it is a sweet film, which really does not come off as being neither artsy nor gay. The characters are common people, yet sensitive and well developed. They come across as average, normal people one can relate to. In short, this is a little gem: simple, very believable, well told, leaving one full of good feelings at the end.