Lost Love
流水落花
Hong Kong, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.
Director: Jia Shengfeng 贾胜枫.
Rating: 5/10.
Over-schematic story of a wife who devotes her life to fostering kids isn’t helped by emotionally remote playing from actress-singer Zheng Xiuwen [Sammi Cheng].
STORY
Hong Kong, the present day. Having lost her young son at an early age, and now losing her job accompanying children on a school bus, Chen Tianmei (Zheng Xiuwen) decides with her husband, He Bin (Lu Junguang), to become a foster parent. The work will also earn them some money, as they can’t afford to have another child of their own at present. They are assessed as suitable foster parents by young social worker Mo (Tan Shanyan). The first child is a young boy, Wensen (Huang Zile), who doesn’t talk at all, and Chen Tianmei is initially very disorganised when looking after him. To buy back his student i.d. card from a class bully, Wensen steals HK$100 from his foster parents; but when Chen Tianmei tries to question him about the missing money, Wensen sulks and wets his bed. At school Wensen is disciplined for fighting wih the class bully, but Chen Tianmei defends him; afterwards, Wensen say a few words to her for the first time. Wensen starts to bond with his foster parents, especially He Bin. But after Wensen’s crazed mother turns up, demanding her son’s return, social services move him to another foster family. Chen Tianmei and He Bin’s are next assigned a young girl, Jingjing (Li Yunwei), who’s well behaved but doesn’t like the way Chen Tianmei cooks shuijiao (boiled dumplings) compared with her mother. When Chen Tianmei meets Jingjing’s pregnant mother (Liang Yongting), the latter makes it clear she never considered the child her own. One night He Bin suggests to Chen Tianmei that they have another child of their own, but Chen Tianmei is scared it could also die like their previous one. Over the years, the couple foster a variety of children and teenagers: Xiaohua (Wu Zhiqiao), a sweet young girl with a slight harelip; a well-behaved boy, Tan Junming (Zhao Qilan); and a rebellious teenage girl (Zeng Ruitong) and her younger brother (Xu Jiaqian). At one point Chen Tianmei spots He Bin holding hands with a young woman in the street. When she finally confronts him, he says he needs company, as Chen Tianmei is always busy with the children. She says she won’t divorce him as she wants to go on fostering kids.
REVIEW
After her lead stint in femmefest Fagara 花椒之味 (2019) and a so-so segment in the portmanteau Covid movie Hero 世间有她 (2022), Hong Kong actress-singer Zheng Xiuwen 郑秀文 [Sammi Cheng], 51, brushes up her arthouse credentials with Lost Love 流水落花, a low-budget light drama about a childless wife who decides to dedicate her life to fostering children. Zheng has tackled serious roles in the past but she’s really at her best in star-driven commercial vehicles like Fagara or Love Contractually 合约男女 (2017). Here, with no other major stars, she basically has to carry the movie, which she manages to do but without bringing anything special to the role. She’s not helped by direction from Jia Shengfeng 贾胜枫 that’s devoid of any real emotion and has “arthouse” written all over it. Watchable but rarely engaging, it took a tiny HK$6.6 million on release in Mar 2023 and went online four months later.
Funded by the Hong Kong government’s First Feature Film Initiative, it marks Jia’s feature debut after two shorts, both centred on family and children. Born in Suzhou, China, in 1986, Jia moved with his family to Hong Kong around the age of 10, and after university worked initially as a journalist. Co-written with his wife, Luo Jinfei 罗金翡 (a writer on the online drama series The Gutter 叹息桥, 2020), the script plunges straight into the main story with little backgrounding, apart from showing the main character, Chen Tianmei, interacting with kids on a school bus (before she loses the job due to restructuring) and briefly chatting with her husband, He Bin. The latter, sympathetically played by TV actor Lu Junguang 陆骏光, 45, in his first lead film role, is very much a supporting character, largely easy-going, with the film’s focus firmly on Chen Tianmei, a not very sympathetic and rather self-centred woman in Zheng’s remote performance. Reportedly, the script was written with Zheng and Lu in mind.
Most of the couple’s backgrounding and feelings come through in the regular cigarette breaks they share on their flat’s balcony, a device that provides many of the film’s more engaging moments. Their own child’s death, from a heart attack at the age of three, isn’t dealt with in any detail until more than halfway through the movie – a bit late considering the importance it plays in their decision to foster children, as well as the wife’s increasing obsession with the job. Aside from that, the only other personal moment between the couple is a rather manufactured moment when Chen Tianmei suspects He Bin is cheating on her.
The film’s emotional colour largely comes from the various kids fostered – from a highly-strung boy who hardly speaks, through a cute girl with a slight harelip, to a rebellious teenage girl and her younger brother who later bond with the couple. Engaging as most of these are, however, they contrive to make the film very episodic. A by-the-book young social worker, nicely played by TV actress Tan Shanyan 谈善言 (Helios 赤道, 2015; Weeds on Fire 点五步, 2016), pops up occasionally but not enough to make a major mark on the film. Music by Jiang Yitian 江逸天 is gently supportive throughout but sparingly used; widescreen photography by Situ Yilei 司徒一雷, who’s shot several documentaries, is neatly composed in a schematic way.
The film’s Chinese title is a four-character phrase, literally “Flowing Water Fallen Flowers”, that’s a metaphor for fleeting time.
CREDITS
Presented by Film Development Fund (HK). Produced by Flowing Water Production (HK).
Script: Luo Jinfei, Jia Shengfeng. Photography: Situ Yilei. Editing: Zhang Shuping [William Chang]. Music: Jiang Yitian. Art direction: Cai Huiyan. Costume design: Guo Yanhui. Styling advice: Wen Nianzhong [Man Lim-chung]. Sound: Du Duzhi, Jiang Yizhen. Visual effects: Chen Dikai (Eye Eye Studio).
Cast: Zheng Xiuwen [Sammi Cheng] (Chen Tianmei), Lu Junguang (He Bin), Tan Shanyan (Mo, social worker), Huang Zile (Wensen), Zhao Qilan (Tan Junming), Liu Chaojian (Zhongheng), Li Yunwei (Jingjing), Xu Jiaqian (Li Jialang, Li Jiaxi’s younger brother), Huang Zixuan (He Zhitao), Wu Zhiqiao (Xiaohua), Zeng Ruitong (Li Jiaxi, Li Jialang’s elder sister), Gu Zulin (school-bus driver), Huang Huijun (convenience-store owner), Liang Yongting (Li, Jingjing’s mother).
Premiere: Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (Co-Closing Film), 13 Nov 2022.
Release: Hong Kong, 2 Mar 2023.