Together
甜•祕密
Taiwan, 2012, colour, 1.85:1, 114 mins.
Director: Xu Zhaoren 许肇任.
Rating: 6/10.
Well-cast but rather shapeless light drama of life in backstreets Taibei.
STORY
Taibei, the present day. Minmin (Li Lie) runs a fruit-juice stall by Yongle Market, next to the extrovert but friendly Xiang (Ma Zhixiang) who owns a small dress-making shop. Her husband Bin (Zhong Zhentao) whiles away his time with a tiny printing business, content to have a quiet life. Their 17-year-old son, Xiaoyang (Huang Shaoyang), is best friends with classmate Ma Zhihao (Wu Jianhe), whose ex-girlfriend (Wen Zhenling) leads a girl-gang which Ma Zhihao’s younger sister is now part of. Xiaoyang’s elder sister, Xiaolan (Li Qianna), is dating the flashy Ba Ba (Wu Zhongtian) and, to the dismay of her mother, is coming home at all hours. In the same neighbourhood is Xiaoli (Sui Tang) who visits her mother (Lu Yijing) and announces she’s pregnant and is getting married to Japanese bookseller Haru (Kitamura Toyoharu). Ma Zhihao asks Xiaoyang to help him in setting up a date with a girl who works at a breakfast cafe; when Ma Zhihao’s ex hears about it, she tries to get him interested in her again. Meanwhile, Xiaoyang tries to dissuade his sister from dating Ba Ba and to fix her up with Michael (Zhang Shaohuai), the shy owner of the breakfast cafe who secretly fancies her. As the date for Xiaoli’s wedding approaches, she starts getting nervous and Bin, who has always liked her, spends time with her. Minmin also starts to realise that the jokey Xiang, to whom she always gives a hard time, cares for her underneath.
REVIEW
A simple patchwork of emotional ties between everyday folk in Taibei’s backstreets, Together 甜•祕密 aims deliberately low in its personal drama but ends up feeling more shapeless than genuinely charming. A first feature by 40-something TV director Xu Zhaoren 许肇任, the movie is mildly amusing in a laidback way. However, there’s a lack of rhythm and dramatic shape to the whole thing that diminishes the efforts the fine ensemble cast: almost every scene goes on too long, and the film needs sharper editing and more music than it actually gets. Re-edited to 90 mins, Together could be a very different movie.
As it stands, the film is most interesting for the pairing of two veterans, Hong Kong singer-actor Zhong Zhentao 钟镇涛 [Kenny Bee] and Taiwan actress-producer Li Lie 李烈, who both played 33 years ago in the classic Taiwan backstreets romance The Story of a Small Town 小城故事 (Li Xing 李行, 1978). Zhong, now 59, and Li Lie, 54, have both matured into fine actors, with the former excellent here as a hen-pecked husband, Bin, who will do anything for a quiet life and the latter driving her scenes as Minmin, a sharp-tongued but essentially lonely working mother. Each is given a soulmate in the film: Bin spends time with a younger, offbeat woman (nicely played by model-actress Sui Tang 随堂, the lesbian teacher in Make Up 命运化妆师, 2011) who’s getting pre-wedding nerves, while Minmin spars daily with her cheeky business neighbour (entertainingly played by Ma Zhixiang 马志翔 [Umin Boya], Warriors of the Rainbow 赛德克•巴莱, 2011).
However, the real centre of the film, through whose perspective many of the events are filtered, is the couple’s teenage son, Xiaoyang (the likeably pesky Huang Shaoyang 黄劭扬). Reading out teenage love-notes and functioning as a kind of relationships doctor, Xiaoyang tries to fix others’ love-lives while having none of his own. Like several ideas in the movie, it’s smart and could have come off with some extra script tweaking; but at the end of the day it’s just one element in a very loose fabric that could have been so much better without sacrificing any low-key charm.
Technically, the film is professionally shot, with a good feel for Taibei’s scooter-filled backstreets and easy-going denizens, though Xu’s occasional attempts at arty framing get in the way of the action. Part-and-parcel of the film’s loose structure is the fact that several relationships are difficult to work out in the early stages. The film’s Chinese title puns on that of a classic romantic song, made famous by singer Deng Lijun 邓丽君 [Teresa Teng], that was earlier used for Comrades, Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 (1996).
CREDITS
Presented by Rediron (TW). Produced by Rediron (TW), Great Vision Production (TW).
Script: Zhuang Shihong, Xu Zhaoren. Photography: Xia Shaoyu. Editing: Lin Zixian, Huang Wenlong. Editing supervision: Liao Qingsong. Music: Ke Zhihao. Art direction: Tang Jiahong. Costumes: Gao Jialin. Sound: Mou Zongfu, Joseph Ye, Zheng Xuzhi.
Cast: Sui Tang (Xiaoli/Lily), Zhong Zhentao [Kenny Bee] (Bin, Minmin’s husband), Li Lie (Minmin), Ma Zhixiang [Umin Boya] (Xiang, dressmaker), Li Qianna (Xiaolan, Xiaoyang’s elder sister), Lu Yijing (Xiaoli’s mother), Wu Zhongtian [Matt Wu] (Yanjing/Ba Ba/Ba Man, Xiaolan’s boyfriend), Zhang Shaohuai (Michael), Huang Shaoyang (Xiaoyang, Minmin’s son), Wu Jianhe (Ma Zhihao), Wen Zhenling (Ma Zhihao’s ex-girlfriend), Kitamura Toyoharu (Haru, Xiaoli’s fiance), Jiang Shengmin [Suming Rupi], Lin Zhiru.
Premiere: Busan Film Festival (New Currents), 5 Oct 2012.
Release: Taiwan, 30 Nov 2012.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 22 Jan 2013.)