Till We Meet Again

月老

Taiwan/South Korea/Hong Kong, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 126 mins.

Director: Ke Jingteng 柯景腾 [Giddens Ko 九把刀].

Rating: 4/10.

Technically smooth slice of supernatural whimsy is let down by a garbled script, despite okay leads.

STORY

Jilong, northern Taiwan, the present day, winter. After playing basketball with some friends, Shi Xiaolun, aka Lun (Ke Zhendong), is killed by lightning in a sudden freak storm. He finds himself in the Underworld where he’s registered in a dusty old office and given a review of his life on a CD. The registrar (Liu Rongjia) says she’s also there to help with his reincarnation as whatever he chooses – from a human to an insect. That depends on how many credits he can accrue to add to those from his past life. Lun has lost all his memory, as the lightning damaged his brain; but to avoid being reincarnated as a slug, he chooses to join a large group training to become Gods of Love – matchmakers who are invisible in the Living World but can bring people together using a magic red twine. Also in the group is Huang Wenzi, aka Pinky (Wang Jing), a volatile girl with pink hair who keeps shouting at him. Meanwhile, in the Living World, schoolteacher Hong Jingqing, aka Xiaomi (Song Yunhua), is temporarily working at a pharmacy following a leg injury; she is upset that her beloved dog Lu has a tumour and needs an operation. In the Underworld, to graduat the trainees have to pair off and show affection for each other; Lun and Pinky end up with each other and just about manage to pass the test. They qualify, with others, to return to the Living World as invisible matchmakers, with each successful pairing earning them a credit towards being reincarnated as humans. Meanwhile, a group of ethnic Taiwan bandits from 500 years ago, led by Ghost Head (Ma Zhixiang), are on the prowl with their own agenda of revenge. Lun helps Pinky to get revenge on her former boyfriend (He Haochen), which helps to strengthen their friendship. But one evening, though they’re both invisible, Xiaomi’s dog recognises Lun and then Xiaomi arrives on the scene. The incident triggers a memory from childhood when he first fell for Xiaomi and asked her to marry him. He then remembers that she and the dog were with him the day he died, and that he’d just proposed to her, after years of her considering him only a childhood friend. Pinky watches him as he cries at the memory. The problem now is that Xiaomi can’t see him, and she seems resistant to the group’s love twines. But all is not as it seems, and to complicates matters Pinky becomes jealous.

REVIEW

A young man gets a second chance at wooing his childhood love when he’s sent back from the Underworld in Till We Meet Again, a technically smooth slice of supernatural whimsy that’s the third feature by popular Taiwan writer-director Ke Jingteng 柯景腾 [Giddens Ko 九把刀]. Free of the unpleasant taste of his comedy-horror Mon Mon Mon Monsters 报告老师！怪怪怪怪物！ (2017), but still lacking the simple charm of his hit directing debut, high-school rom-com You Are the Apple of My Eye (2011), it has all the hallmarks of Ke’s works – youth focus, shallow tone, bozo humour, technical slickness – but has a garbled plot and is a good half-hour too long. Though it took a reasonably good NT$240 million on home territory – about six times the amount of Monsters – it was still a long way from the success of Apple (NT$425 million).

Based on a 2002 novel of the same Chinese title that Ke, now 43, wrote back at the start of his career (see cover, left), the film brings back his cinematic alter ego, actor Ke Zhendong 柯震东, 31, in the lead role, as a cocky young guy who’s struck by lightning one day, ends up in the Underworld, and is given a chance to resurrect as a human (rather than a slug) if he can first earn enough credits as an invisible God of Love back in the Living World. The problem is that, while on his mission, he comes across his childhood love, who proves very resistant to pairing up with anybody. As that love is Taiwan actress Song Yunhua 宋芸桦, 29, who began as the lead in the Ke Jingteng-scripted Cafe. Waiting. Love 等 一个人 咖啡 (2014) and has since become a Greater China star in her own right (Our Times 我的少女時代, 2015; Hello Mr. Billionaire 西虹市首富, 2018). The pairing with Ke Zhendong (whose career is only just starting to recover following his arrest in the Mainland on a drugs charge in Aug 2014) is serendipitous, with each matching the other’s ingenuous charm and Song especially making the most of a rote role.

Unfortunately, Ke Jingteng’s grasp of structure is still weak, relying on a basically episodic style and, whenever things get slack, throwing in crazed comedy routines, poppy music, or bit of a garbled subplot about a crazed killer (played by half-aboriginal actor Ma Zhixiang 马志翔 [Umin Boya], Warriors of the Rainbow 赛德克•巴莱, 2011) who’s stalking the universe in some kind of revenge. The copious VFX are smooth, and don’t get in the way of the main drama, but the dialogue is pedestrian and full of supernatural gobbledegook. Thankfully the film doesn’t take itself very seriously, and sparks of genuine humour and Song’s attractive playing leaven the borderline ridiculous plotting. But in the final stages Ke abandons any attempt at subtlety and throws in everything but the kitchen sink as he tries to make an action-fantasy spectacular on a Taiwan-sized budget (reportedly some NT$100 million).

Sharing lead billing is 24-year-old Taiwan actress Wang Jing 王净 (All Because of Love 痴情男子汉, 2017; horror Detention 返校, 2019), who’s terminally annoying in the early stages as a self-obsessed Gen-00er with pink hair but later becomes more sympathetic. Widescreen photography by Ke regular Zhou Yixian 周宜贤 is good-looking without being distractingly glossy, while music by regular Hou Zhijian 侯志坚 is as annoying as his noisy score for Monsters. The film was shot in late 2019 in northern Taiwan, where it’s set. The Chinese title is a Daoist term for a divine matchmaker. The film has yet to be released in the Mainland because of the proscription on films with Ke Zhendong.

CREDITS

Presented by Machi Xcelsior Studios (TW), Hive Filmworks (SK), Third Man Entertainment (TW), Fist of Fear (TW), Harvest 9 Road Entertainment (TW), Lots Home Entertainment (TW), GC Entertainment (TW), Ambassador Theatres (TW), Applause Entertainment Taiwan Branch (HK). Produced by Machi Xcelsior Studios (TW).

Script: Ke Jingteng [Giddens Ko]. Novel: Ke Jingteng [Giddens Ko]. Photography: Zhou Yixian. Editing: Gao Mingsheng, Wang Jingqiao. Music: Hou Zhijian. Art direction: Wang Zhicheng. Styling: Lin Xinyi. Sound: Zhu Shiyi, Gao Weiyan. Action: Yang Zhilong. Visual effects: Yan Zhenqin (DCraft Studio).

Cast: Ke Zhendong (Shi Xiaolun/Alan), Song Yunhua (Hong Jingqing/Xiaomi), Wang Jing (Huang Wenzi/Pinky), Ma Zhixiang [Umin Boya] (Guitoucheng/Ghost Head), Laka Emaw (Yama), Hong Shengde (Mamian/Horseface), Lu Mingjun (Niutou/Oxhead), Hou Yanxi (Gods of Love male leader), Chen Yu (Gods of Love female leader), Zhang Zaixing (Xing), Cai Changxian (vet), Chen Ruiwei (naughty ghost), Wang Xinghong (horse thieves’ no. 2), Xu Huaqian (businessman), Cai Junru (Death God), Liu Rongjia (Underworld registrar), He Haochen (Tang/Tommy, Pinky’s former boyfriend), Liu Yi’er (horse thieves’ little sister), Cai Fanxi, Deng Yukai (bikers outside bowling hall), Zhang Li’ang (Xiaomi’s college boyfriend), Lin Zhiru (Xiaomi’s father), Ke En (sushi-shop boss), Jian Zongfu, Wu Peiji (sushi-shop chefs), Chen Zhaofei (little girl), Lin Zhiwen (city god soldier), Huang Xuwei (female paper ghost), Huang Lvegeng (nerdy man), Xie Tianming (smoking old man), Ge Cheng (high-school boy), Wang Penglin (gas-cylinder deliveryman), Li Hongju (young Shi Xiaolun), Li Hongliang (young Xiaomi), Ruan Bohao (young vet), Wu Ruomei (Sadako).

Premiere: BiFan Film Festival (Opening Film), Bucheon, South Korea, 8 Jul 2021.

Release: Taiwan, 24 Nov 2021; South Korea, 9 Feb 2022; Hong Kong, 23 Dec 2021.