Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

webmaster-3017 A brave effort… Director Leste Chen has ventured into an unlikely genre with a brave heart, but the results are another matter. It is a film that attempts to be compelling, emotional and consequential, but ultimately it fails to connect with the audience. The film itself is like a beautiful image, filled with daring performances, outstanding direction and lighting, but somehow it falls short and perhaps ending up being quite lacking. Putting together two relatively unknown male leads enhance the credibility of the film by being more believable and surprisingly they handed their respective roles with suitable bravery and emotionally performed. Coming from the lush of fame from the arty 20:30:40, Kate Yeung is suitably nature and a potential filled performance worthy of noting.The movie goes like this: The film opens with elementary school kid Jonathan (Bryant Chang), ordered by the teacher to befriend his classmate Shane (Joseph Chang). Since then, they have shared every episode in their lives until Carrie (Kate Yeung) becomes their high school classmate...It is still a mystery, as to the prime reason why the movie never seem to connect to Neo, perhaps it is the subject matter it is dealing with, but the film is ultimately distant and leaving far too many stones unturned in the process. Some twists like the controversial sex scene is far more shocking and brave than actually affecting and connecting. It is probably safe to say that the script is really a let down, as everything else seems like the product of good cinema. There is no doubt that the filmmaker here is daring and is not afraid to expose edgy issues and there are even scenes that reminds us of a far superior –Wong Kar Wai's film – Happy Together. Unfortunately this flick never reaches those heights and the effect is more like experimental cinema than actual accomplished cinema.Still, with all the criticisms the performances of the trio is without doubt the core saviour for the film as they are able to create believable characters and act beyond the material they are given. Byrant Chang handles his role in an outright sympathetic manner with his heart torn between his love for his best friend and his duty to maintain his friendship. He is expressive and subtle at times, creating a performance that is worthy of some recognition. Likewise, Joseph Chang performs extremely well in a complex role, but in a way his performance may well be enhanced by the sudden shocks within the scripts, rather than his actual performance. Nonetheless, he remains a fine young talent. Of the trio, Kate Yeung is given the filling parts or perhaps what Neo calls "a paper thin role", but somehow, Yeung is able to act beyond her material and resulting in the most natural performance of the trio. She is a bright young talent and despite not being an outright beauty, her talents by far outweigh that minor physical flaw.All in all, Eternal Summer is by no means a bad movie, and in fact it almost has all the ingredients to set it up as an outright award winning arty film. Unfortunately the film failed to connect and affect to the audience's emotions, resulting in a finale that is more emotional and tense for the people on screen, rather than the ones looking on. It is ultimately a trying and brave effort and for that alone, it is worthy of giving some sort of credit to. Nonetheless, it is an interesting look into the lives of three tormented souls and the daring performances are alone worthy of a pat on the shoulders for their efforts… (Neo 2006)I rate it 7.5/10.www.thehkneo.com

zephyr24-1 Well I think this film pretty much sums up the notion that love transcends time and gender. A bittersweet tale of childhood yearning for a best friend that has taken a new direction as the two friends grow up to find the meaning of love and life when a girl threatens to upset the status quo.The two lead male actors, Bryan and Joseph, give a sensitive and insightful performance as two best friends whose friendship is more than just ordinary. Kate plays the girl who comes between them and the girl shows grown-up sensibility beyond her age.Heartwarming, poignant and ultimately heart wrenching. Watching it is enough to make any grown man want to cry.

Glenn I agree with the other review that this film is very moving. It is not a perfect film but I enjoyed it very much. The music is rather syrupy which lends to the film's tear jerking nature. But the story is very well done and the performances of the leads are very strong and they do have very good chemistry. I'm not sure that the sex scene really made a whole lot of sense to me and there seemed to be a fair amount edited out of the story which might have made the film better and fleshed things out a bit more. I think the characters are rather relatable for most gay guys. I certainly had my share of straight friends who I was in love with over the years. And I liked the way the story is told from the beginning of their friendship. I wasn't sure if Carrie was supposed to be the same girl as the one at the beginning who gets her hair cut by Shane. Definitely worth seeing.

Lee Alon What's so special about this new romantic-sorrowful flick isn't its brief dalliance with gay love, nor its category III rating in Hong Kong. The rating no one should get worked up over, since they seem to be dishing them out like there's no tomorrow nowadays with Little regard for actual content. In Eternal Summer's case it's likely due to a super short scene depicting the two male leads naked in bed and doing the nasty, something even the ho-hum Brokeback Mountain managed to get right with less fuss.No, Eternal Summer dances around its main point to an exaggerated degree, in the end causing us to wonder what that point was meant to be to begin with. Rather, what's so special about this one is its membership in a very exclusive club of movies with enough projectile velocity to break free of Taiwan, where it was made. Taiwanese cinema has become rare, something we lament. For that only, Eternal Summer demands your support.It unfortunately possesses scant few other redeeming traits. Viewers can see the whole gist of it from the get-go, and in its arsenal of tricks exist no better weapons than an age-old threesome of young and restless characters in search of definition. But they hardly do much to find meaning, which is likely a stilllife phenomenon someone like Taiwan-based mastermind director Hou Hsiao Hsien would have worked wonders with. But trusted to 25 year-old Leste Chen (The Heirloom) it all comes across flat and uncompelling. Never mind, young auteurs like that require our attention and movie-going prowess, so we're willing to take an uninspired story as part of proceedings.Two additional newcomers do the main two protagonists, rebellious James Dean-type Shane by the darkly alluring Joseph Chang and geeky, lost soul Jonathan via Bryant Chang. Their characters meet as young boys at a rural school when Jonathan is asked by a teacher to buddy up with attention-lacking Shane as a means of getting the weaker student into the swing of things, and the rest constitutes a very short history.Years later, they're best friends, almost inseparable and with an undercurrent of attraction not entirely par for the course, although that part is left for audiences to quite easily deduce on their own.Into the mix is then thrown Carrie, played by sexy tomboy Kate Yeung, who we've before seen in Mighty Baby and The Eye 10. This young lady gives mid-90's Liv Tyler as serious a marathon for her money as can be arranged, easily stealing the show with her range of facial expressions and sincere, almost jocular attitude. She's largely wasted in Eternal Summer, with a skillset far more suited to the sarcastic niche filled by fellow youthful lovelies like Cherrie Ying.All this takes place as the trio gets ready to finish high school and move on to college, and the plot follows them as they do so. One neat aspect of Eternal Summer is how it effectively excludes everyone else, forcing the story to highlight only the three as if they were the epitome of iconoclastic social angst. This does work, but lacks the power and impact derived from a truly interesting story to back it up.Love and emotion get their two cents in as Jonathan and Carrie begin a timid exploration into the world of lust, something merely glanced in a missed opportunity transpiring at a Taipei love hotel. Then the balance of pheromone power shifts to see Carrie and Shane give it a go, with friendship remaining at the forefront all along.Sure there's a desire to find out more about what drives people as they discover new ground in themselves. And the rustic, faux-retro feel (looks like they were indeed going for a late 90's setting) helps in avoiding gimmicks and other lifestyle distractions. Yet, Eternal Summer goes by unnoticed almost, and by the time its so-called sensational climax arrives the average viewer would be challenged to do more than tick a box on a checklist. Yes, it's still not a commonplace theme in cinema overall, let alone Asian cinema, but so much more could have been done with it.Seriously, given a more mature crew at the wheel, Eternal Summer could have been deftly transformed into something to talk about for a while as a symbol of encompassing gay themes, or at the very least as a brain-boggling surreal love flick in the vein of 1999's Where Have all The Flowers Gone with Zhou Xun.Bereft of potency, Eternal Summer inhabits a perpetual limbo state populated by movies that look good (the Taiwan countryside makes for some lush environs), are capably written on paper and could have been infinitely more aggressive in going about their business, but didn't.That's a shame and not the type of shot in the arm Taiwan's filmmakers need. We're still waiting for that particular season to come along.Rating: * * *