Deja Vu
One subject that continues to fascinate me is
the argument regarding chance versus fate. Is much of our life drawn out
beforehand or is it completely dependent on the whims of chance whether
you turned left instead of right or paused to look in a store window (Comrades:
A Love Story! ah, but was that fate?). I go by this second theory in
which every life has a million roads that it can go down and every road
taken effects many other lives in a different way. A few films have tackled
this subject recently as they have depicted a number of alternative lives
that could have taken place but for some small thing of chance. Sliding
Doors, the excellent German film Run Lola Run and the HK film Too Many
Ways To Be Number One all did this in a very interesting and thought provoking
manner.
Déjà Vu ventures into the realm
of chance versus fate, but unfortunately not with nearly the same results.
Though the beginning of the film is promising, the script turns out to
be a fairly lackluster love story and the film just trudges along for quite
a while before it is resolved. In the end though, the film seems to say
that no matter which road you take, fate is there waiting for you.
The film follows two versions of the lives of
Teresa Lee and Vicky Chiu (a well known Mainland TV actress) who are
two cousins living in Shanghai. One day on their way up an escalator Teresa
Lee trips coming off and bumps into Nicky Wu, while Vicky then bends over
to help and trips up Peter Ho. In the other alternate version, it is Vicky
who trips and meets Nicky while Teresa and Peter hook up.
The film then jumps back and forth between the
two parallel universes and shows how each life and relationship would have
been played out. The Teresa/Nicky relationship soon fizzles, as does the
Peter/Vicky one but the other alternative life appears headed for a happy
ending (for those who believe in happy endings). But the question I kept
asking myself was which of these versions was the real one. Though I basically
like happy endings, the cynical side of me was hoping that at the end
the film would go oops sorry the real version was the one in which
nothing much happened but for one little wrong trip all their lives could
have worked out well.
Instead though in the end it basically says that
no matter which girl tripped eventually fate would bring them to where
they belong. Not that I buy that, but it is a possibility I suppose. Even
so the film has very little spark much of the reason for this residing
with the two male leads. Nicky Wu sings a few songs and he sounds pretty
good to me so I hope he is a singer first and an actor second because
I continue to find him so monotonous and uncharismatic as an actor while
Peter Ho, who was decent if not great in The Truth about Jane and Sam,
just comes off as smug and annoying (and badly in need of a haircut!) in
this film.
So I cant really understand the girls being interested
in them in either life! Both the female actresses do a good job, show some
life and are fun to watch interact with one another. I much prefer seeing
Teresa Lee in this type of role rather than her miscasted portrayals of
cops (Big Bullet and Extreme Crisis). Vicky Chiu is a new face to me
but she shows a lot of energy and personality on the screen and creates
an interesting character.
My rating for this film: 5.5