Tonight's photo: Looking for the heart of Lane Cove's Saturday night. Which means it's Tom Waits and Talisker night!Like many others in Australia, I find myself increasingly turning to foreign language movies to escape the usual trash put out by Hollywood.
Tired of B Grade actors, half-witted talentless starlets with knockers bigger than their IQ, and rehashed, mangled versions of cinema classics, (can't Hollywood do anything original anymore?), I find myself tuning into our free-to-air, SBS channel.
Last night I saw a beauty - and if you enjoy a good comedy-romance, I can thoroughly recommend it. No sex, no nudity, no car-chases and no American politicians with Austrian accents saying, "I'll be back." Just good acting, good plot, good script and two likeable characters.
Hollywood would never go for it."Heung joh chow heung yau chow" is a Hong Kong/Singapore production with the English title of, "Turn Left, Turn Right" and "Xiang zuo zou xiang you zou" (Hong Kong: Mandarin title).
The idea is simple. It's about two people (Gigi Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro), who are destined to be together but by some twist of circumstances they never find each other. From childhood, they lead parallel lives but fate seems to conspire against them. Telephone numbers get lost or smudged in the rain. They live next door to each other but don't know it - for one turns left, the other turns right.
The two lead characters are extremely likeable - which is more than can be said about the movies one drawback - the supporting characters. They are irritating and to my mind, unnecessary.
It's mushy, it's schmaltzy - it's escapism. Don't try and analyse it - just enjoy it.
Wherever you may be - be safe
