Ο Έρωτας στο Λυκόφως

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine4.0

RESEÑA EN ESPAÑOL AQUIACTION! - TURN THE (TSUI) HARK UPTsui Hark’s films sometimes are like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re going to get. Case in point: this genre-bending film that mixes time travel, ghost story, slapstick comedy, murder mystery, romance, and the director’s signature brand of slapstick. In lesser hands this could have easily come off as tonal whiplash, but Hark does a great job balancing it all into one high-energy, chaotic movie that miraculously doesn’t feel as messy as it could have. The visual effects look very dated, but instead of detracting from the experience, they add to the film’s charm, including one vomit scene that, for whatever reason, made me wish Tsui Hark had directed a Scary Movie-type spoof. Random thought, I know.Charlie Yeung and Nicky Wu have fantastic screen chemistry, which is very important as much of the film hinges on it. They have a bit of that screwball energy that some of the best films in the genre had, and it was simply magnetic. Both have great comedic timing, making the experience, while not laugh-out-loud funny, still a really good time.All in all, this is a film that cannot be properly put into words—it has to be seen to be understood. Prepare yourself for one of Hark’s trippiest films, one that starts at full speed and barely slows down for the rest of its runtime.ACTION! - TURN THE (TSUI) HARK UPTODAY SCHEDULEDou kyu sei – ClassmatesThe Chinese FeastLove in the time of twilight

reibureibu4.5

Inspired, ingenious, pure and sincere, there're very few films out there like this and it's really a shame. Tsui Hark strings us along for what seems like a typical rom-com slapstick at the beginning before abruptly expelling us into several other dimensions of cinema at the drop of a hat, and the rest of the film becomes an exercise in execution, almost more a showing of a magician's bag of tricks rather than a film outlined by a tight narrative, but given the tricks at play I don't think many would complain. In doing so it builds upon itself, never losing sight of its rom-com origins but layering over it with inventive techniques that push the two lovers-to-be closer together in ways unique to cinema, re-framing the initial quotidian events as not just a necessary chore but the lynchpin to the entire endeavor.If I am being vague in my descriptions, it is on purpose. Going into this film without knowing anything about it made the experience far better, the surprise at discovering what this film really is so much more exciting, and I advise those interested to do the same because if I knew the basic premise beforehand I don't think I would've loved it as much as I do now.Love overcoming death, in the most impulsive way possible. Love in the time of life after death.

Sean Gilman4.5

Oh just your typical mashup of Back to the Future, Ghost, Cantonese Opera, Looney Tunes and vomit jokes. The least well-known of Tsui Hark's four films from 1995 but it might be the best. The Blade is a dark as hell ultra-violent wuxia film, The Chinese Feast a farce about food and community, and this one an effects-driven, period romantic comedy. (I haven't seen the fourth, The Lovers, which like this one also stars Charlie Yeung and Nicky Wu, yet). What a year.A variation on the multiple-couple format of his own Shanghai Blues and Peking Opera Blues, except the couples are doppelgangers of the central figures as what begins as a conventional romantic comedy (anti-romantic opening where the protagonists instantly hate each other and engage in an escalating prank war), turns into a sci-fi mystery when the man gets killed by bandits and his ghost comes back to take the woman back in time to save himself. Complications ensue. As does hilarity, romance, all kinds of liminal spaces ("the time of twilight" indeed!) and, as in the best Tsui films, quiet moments for supporting characters (the woman's father singing a song for his dead wife) as well as the heroes (a young couple entranced by the ephemerality of fireworks) that are genuinely beautiful.This should be seen more. It doesn't even have a wikipedia page, and the DVD I rented of it is cropped to 4x3.