Touch of the Light

逆光飞翔

Taiwan/Hong Kong, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 114 mins.

Director: Zhang Rongji 张荣吉.

Rating: 6/10.

Offbeat heartwarmer between a blind pianist and wannabe dancer goes the distance.

STORY

Taibei, the present day. Born blind, to parents with a flower-growing business in rural Taiwan, Huang Yuxiang (Huang Yuxiang) is a talented pianist who faces his first time away from home when he goes to attend university in the capital. He’s the first blind student in the college’s musical faculty. His mother (Li Lie) helps him during the first few days and he has a friendly roommate in Zhu Ziqing (Shan Liang), who wants to start a band of his own. Near the college, Xiaojie (Zhang Rongrong) works in a small fruit-juice shop, despite the naggings of her spendthrift mother (Ke Shuqin) to get a better job. Stuck in an unsatisfying relationship with Yue (Zhang Huaiqiu), a rap dancer, she dreams of becoming a dancer herself, and finally enrols in some free-dance classes. Huang Yuxiang and Xiaojie meet in the street one day, when she helps him find his way to an elementary school where he’s giving music lessons, and they inspire each other to fulfil their dreams.

REVIEW

With its two lead characters remaining platonic friends throughout, Touch of the Light 逆光飞翔 is more a mate movie than a date movie, an offbeat heartwarmer – or what the Chinese call an “inspirational movie” 励志片 – that’s paper-thin on a plot level but manages to maintain interest over almost two hours with its performances and direction alone. This first feature by early 30s film-maker Zhang Rongji 张荣吉 is a development of his 37-minute short The End of the Tunnel 天黑 (2008), which featured the same two leads, real-life blind pianist Huang Yuxiang 黄裕翔 and 25-year-old Taiwan-French actress Zhang Rongrong 张榕容 [Sandrine Pinna] (Candy Rain 花吃了那女孩, 2008; Yang Yang 阳阳, 2009). A follow-your-dream movie, in which the pianist leaves his rural home to attend college in Taibei and encourages a fruit-juice girl to pursue a career as a dancer, it mostly manages to stay the right side of soppy melodrama while sketching a spiritual attraction between the two very different leads.

The script doesn’t even bring the pair together until halfway through the film, which until then cross-cuts between Huang (playing a version of himself) settling into college with the help of his mother (nicely played, with supportive optimism, by Li Lie 李烈, producer of Monga 艋舺, 2010, and Jump Ashin! 翻滚吧！阿信, 2011) and Zhang’s Xiaojie, who has a two-timing boyfriend and a mother who squanders money on special-offer beauty products. When the two bump into each other on the street, it’s a meeting of minds: she releases him from his prison of blindness and he releases her from her prison of everyday life.

It’s a fanciful, rather thinly-scripted idea that pretty much works on its own level, thanks to Spanish-born French d.p. Dylan Doyle’s mobile camerawork, which gives the movie a realist edge instead of a saccharine feel. Doyle’s experience on commercials and music videos clicks in whenever the film develops its boldest riff – visually portraying the link between Huang Yuxiang’s world of sound and touch with Xiaojie’s aspirational world of pure feeling, of flying free, in dance. (The Chinese title means “Backlit Flight”.) When the movie cross-cuts between Huang Yuxiang and his band performing at a competition in Taibei and Xiaojie doing her solo dance routine at an audition in Hong Kong, it is, indeed, an inspiring moment, as music and visuals combine to link the characters.

Not yet an accomplished actress, Zhang is fine here in a role that’s made for her indie-ish screen persona. However, all the clever camerawork, which stays away from full body shots, can’t disguise the fact she’s no dancer – whereas Huang Yuxiang is a real pianist and proves it. This imbalance weakens the realist side of the film, though Zhang’s Eurasian looks nicely underscore the fact, without ever being stated explicitly, that she’s also, like Huang, a kind of outsider. Supporting performances are warm and marbled with comedy, in a Taiwan-slacker way, and editing by scriptwriter Li Nianxiu 李念修 is smooth.

CREDITS

Presented by Block 2 Pictures (HK), Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK). Produced by Jet Tone Films (Taiwan) (TW), Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK).

Script: Li Nianxiu. Photography: Dylan Doyle. Editing: Li Nianxiu. Music: Wen Zijie, Huang Yuxiang. Art direction: Wu Ruoyun. Costume design: Deng Yufang. Sound: Gao Weiyan, Zheng Xuzhi. Choreography: Chen Wukang. Performance direction: Chen Xuezhen, Huang Caiyi.

Cast: Zhang Rongrong [Sandrine Pinna] (Xiaojie), Huang Yuxiang (Huang Yuxiang), Li Lie (Meixiang, Huang Yuxiang’s mother), Xu Fangyi (Xu, dance teacher), Ke Shuqin (Xiaojie’s mother), Na Dou [Lin Yuzhi] (Xiaojie’s boss), Yin Xin (Wang, teacher), Shan Liang [Xie Kanjun] (Zhu Ziqing, Huang Yuxiang’s roommate), Zhang Huaiqiu (Yue, Xiaojie’s boyfriend), MC40 [Xue Shiling] (Xian), Huang Lianyu (Huang Yuxiang’s father), Wu Yajun (Huang Yuxiang’s younger sister), Lin Lixiang (young Huang Yuxiang), Huang Yixiang (dormitory head), Huang Caiyi (tutor), Fang Jinli (Huang Yuxiang’s aunt).

Premiere: Taipei Film Festival (Gala Premieres), 30 Jun 2012.

Release: Taiwan, 21 Sep 2012; Hong Kong, 4 Apr 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 22 Oct 2012.)