Lunar Eclipse
- -Lunar Eclipse is an urban drama following the wife of a newlywed couple who becomes mesmerized by an amateur photographer who claims to have once been in love with a woman who looked just like her.
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This striking first feature by Wang Quan’an plays with concepts like romance and memory in an offbeat way, without stretching the patience of its audience with too many “indie” indulgences.
Billing itself as “two stories, one woman/two women, one story”, it’s a cleverly constructed, noir-ish drama with a sly sense of humour that announces an original talent. A young woman, Ya Nan (Yu Nan), is injured in a car accident, leaves hospital, and phones her father in Dalian to tell him she’s getting married to a businessman (Hu Xiaoguang). When the couple’s car breaks down one day in the wilds, they are helped by a young photographer (Wu Chao) who develops a cautious relationship with Ya Nan: he claims that she reminds him of a girl, Jia Niang, he used to know… However, it gradually becomes clear that the photographer is not exactly being honest, and that the characters could be connected in some unimaginable way. The film is held together by a remarkable, low-key performance from Wu as the mysterious young man – a rather hopeless, somewhat simple guy who’s nevertheless strangely likable. Yu is highly charismatic as the object of his attention, and the cast of supporting players – especially Hu Lingling as the heroine’s married friend and Chi Nai as the photographer’s neighbour – all contribute to the movie’s very individual atmosphere.
Derek Elley
Thanks to Far East Film Festival