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‘Fleeing by Night’
a sentimental journeyFleeing by Night:
HERE we have an old-fashioned, slightly decadent metropolis on the eve of World War II, a crew of lurid stage performers, dancers and singers, a trio consisting of two men and a woman -- one sheltered and sensitive, one wracked with ennui, one flamboyantly talented --and, by gum, the two men are more interested in each other than in the woman. By Burl Burlingame
Star-BulletinIt's "Cabaret!," you might think. Nope. It's "Fleeing By Night," a new movie from Taiwan.
And while it doesn't have Nazis, it does have ambiguously gay Mandarin bankers, who undo their queues and shake out their hair suggestively.
The gayest character in the film is also the creepiest and most reptilian, and the rest are confused, so the movie isn't exactly an alternate-lifestyle manifesto.
The drama unfolds largely within the confines of Chinese "kun" opera, which combines singing and dancing and acting in a way that enthralls those who grew up with it, and goes right over the heads of everyone else.
When a Chinese-opera audience gasps in adoration at the way a singer squeaks "Lamentations! I must devote myself to filial piety!" you're in for it, one way or another.
Ing'er is a young lady whose parents own a variety of businesses in a seacoast city, including an opera house. They house a troupe whose star, Lin Chung, has so little sense of his own being that he takes the name of the character he plays.
He's pretty much a cipher. Ing'er is completely swept up in the magical world of opera, and then one day her pen-pal, Shaodung, comes home from musical studies in New York. He plays a cello oh-so-sensitively and his parents have promised him Ing'er as a bride.
The three form an unlikely trio, particularly when Shaodung becomes spellbound by Lin's stage presence, and starts scraping out opera melodies on the cello. You know what's in the wind when the two guys have eyes only for each other, and not even a wink for Ing'er, who -- naturally! -- is gorgeous. That's the way it goes in tearful, soapy dramas like this.
The photography is first-rate and deeply saturated, typical of the old-fashioned film stocks used in China. Much of the action takes place in natural light or in the rosy glow of lamps. The verisimilitude of pre-war China isn't very convincing, and while you're sure it's happening in the past, it could be just last year instead of the 1930s.
As Ing'er, Rene Liu is both fetching and complicated, and easily holds the picture down on the ground all by herself.
Chinese opera fans, readers of romance classics and those who weep during grandparent-little-kid fast-food commercials will like this film a whole lot.
This is the first of five Hawai'i International Film Festival Golden Maile-nominated feature films that we will review through Nov. 9. Winners will be announced Nov. 10.
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