 Alternative title: Fei Chang Wan Mei (Mandarin)
Written and directed by: Yimeng Jin
Starring: Ziyi Zhang as Sophie, BingBing Fan as Joanna (Anna), Peter Ho as Gorden and Jisub So as Jeff.
Sophie's Revenge might seem like just another ordinary romance comedy that we've seen so many times before and know the ending before we're even halfway through. But that is not quite true. Even though the Chinese love comedy does remind of many other Hollywood stories, one cannot help but sit through it till the end. It is not a masterpiece or a movie that will remain in my film history as being really wonderful. However, it was definitely a pleasure to see and a nice change from the stereotyped Hollywood productions that we are being flooded with nowadays.
The film has a few strong points, though. First of all, the brilliance of Ziyi Zhang. The star shined as a tough girl in the Oscar winning Marshall arts Taiwan movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Then she moved on to a Golden Globe best actress nomination for her spectacular presentation of the heartbroken and internally conflicted Sayuri in Steven Spielberg's Memoirs of a Geisha. Ziyi is now portraying a quirky-bizarre-clumsy-full-of-energy-ex-girlfriend, trying to get back at her boyfriend and get her boyfriend back, ending up falling in love for her accomplice.
Then again, the movie was absolutely hilarious. I expected a weepy crappy love story with nothing new and nothing fun it in. But from the beginning I was completely and thoroughly overcome by this hilarious embarrassing adventure that this crazy girl went on, just to get her boyfriend back to get back at him for hurting her. And yeah, it might be the oldest story in the world, but Ziyi made it so amusing to watch and participate in that whole process, to be embarrassed together with her and feel touched during the tough moments of despair, that one cannot help but completely fall in love with her.
There were a few places, where one could easily spot the mockery towards Hollywood productions - I come to think of She's All That and the later released parody Not Another Teen Movie and the stairway scene - when Sophie was coming down the stairs in her gorgeous blue gown, making a huge impression and then tripping and ending up on the floor. Moreover, I couldn't help but associate the whole story to Whatever It Takes, although it is not completely similar, though there was pretty much the same point and the same ending. And yet, unlike this film, due to their Hollywood production, those three movies were unable to grab me.
Sophie's Revenge is so cinematographically exquisite, and I was able to look beyond the story into the acting and development of the story and thought it was generally consequent and well-built. It looked really real. Except for the actors' reactions, which seemed ridiculously false at some places, everything else was real. I felt as if Sophie was really this energetic quirky perky girl, bouncing between being sad, being revengeful and being confused about the inner reasons of her actions. I loved her carelessness and confidence in the clumsy scenes, when she portrayed total apathy as to what everyone else thought.
Personal admiration for the great costumes, just loved how Sophie's personality was sketched through her way of clothing and her character was really revealed. Her quirky accessories and crazy outfits, running in her pyjamas, and after her metamorphosis and the rising above her inner motives, her classy gown and elegant coat, as if to portray the beauty of her realization and the process of growing up and moving on. Totally loved the animation bits, which shed a little light on her crazy look on life and her colourful imagination (kind of reminds me of The Science of Sleep in a way), shaping up the character and making it complete and believable.
Overall, thoroughly enjoyable and definitely better than any similar Hollywood production - where there is always too much pressure on the love story and there would've been too little time on Sophie and her development as a personality and reaching her own state of mind and finding the right answers. It was an absolutely brilliant ending, avoiding the Hollywood ending kissing scene in every romantic comedy, but rather relying on the emotional connection, portrayed by that last forehead kiss and all the happiness, peace and harmony in it. That scene was a cinematographic excellence, combining emotion with the breath-taking landscape, to finish the last touches on the movie and leave the audience wanting more and more.
*Image source:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiwmlZIxsZNiFhNuviCCS2qsRotUT2slkMNLgJBokbNbEgh4FFo54T-SzJEh8rKLAS0orgElLp2HcvD3DTrbkEPByqXwd2TsW5FByb-QlK8FLxpyTB5apR05_T5YcFlwR_y-x0FWYMnTyb/s1600/sophie-revenge-korean-poster-pic2.jpgLabels: cueafs, east asian film, movie reviews |
