Love in the Time of Twilight
This is the sort of film that only HK can make.
This Tsui Hark film is a wonderfully warm blend of fantasy, romance and
comedy. I loved this magical film from the first moment till the very last.
The viewer immediately enters into another
world. It is in the early part of the twentieth century and a travelling
fair has come to a small town. The streets are full of wonder - fortunetellers,
matchmakers, performers and more. Charlie Yeung is part of a performing
troupe along with her father and friends. As she wanders the streets, she
keeps bumping into Nicky Wu. They are both looking for love, but it quickly
turns out that they are like oil and water. Instead Nicky catches the eye
of a beguiling beauty and by evening’s end they are in bed together. What
Nicky doesn’t know is that he is being set up to assist unknowingly in
a bank robbery and then be murdered.
Two weeks later the fair comes back to town and
his ghost appears to ask Charlie to help him go back in time and stop the
murder from happening. From this point on the film becomes enchanted; a
lovely and suspenseful fairy tale. Charlie goes back into time, but it
seems that fate is unchangeable.
There is also a lot of comedy here and one scene
though difficult to explain is one of the funniest vaudevillian styled
routines that I have ever seen. Through strange circumstances, Charlie
and Nicky are merged together – back to back- and how they avoid being
discovered is so clever and hilarious.
This is yet another wonderful offering from Tsui
Hark – full of heart and romance and humor. Charlie Yeung gives a sweet
endearing performance as she creates almost two characters – what she was
before she went back in time and who she becomes afterwards.
