Fridae

YE BEN (2000)
Directed by HSU Li-Kong & YIN Chi
Starring Rene LIU, HUANG Lei, YIN Chao-Te, TAI Li-Jen

Set in China in the 1930s, Fleeing By Night tells the life and love story between WEI Ing'er (played by the delectable Rene LIU), her fiance, XU Shaodung (HUANG Lei), an overseas classical music student just returning from New York, and a Kun opera actor who is known as LIN Chong (YIN Chao-Te) - a titled character of the play "Lin Chong Fleeing By Night" he plays well - perhaps too well, as he becomes known by (and remembered for) only that name.

This fact act alone is indicative of the bitterness and circumstances under which opera actors must labour - they who are faceless and nameless, with luck, may be remembered for characters they helped to make well known. And as the story unfolds, we learn of a fourth character, Master HUANG Zilei (TAI Li-Jen) who is so enamoured of LIN he nearly came to a blow with XU over LIN. So in addition to the exploitation by a penny wise director of the troupe, LIN realises fame may cost a great deal than he has bargained for as an opera actor - untoward advances from powerful figures in the form of harassment, for example.

Billed as the most successful local movie of 2000 in Taiwan, the movie arrives amid such fanfare that it must ultimately disappoint those with higher expectations. This is a shame as the movie's great potential is never quite realised.

One problem is with the script. Thanks largely to WANG Hui-Ling (of the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame), it's overly melodramatic and sentimental. The protagonists bemoan their sorry state of affairs through a dialogue so emotion-ridden it just came off sounding cheesy. XU spoke of his love for the motherland upon his return - but never did anything to concretise that love thereafter, begging the question of why it was even brought up in the first place.

Directors HSU Li-Kong and YIN Chi use little imagination to bring the story to life, dutifully filming the stately proceedings as a museum piece. So events just follow one another with little engagement expected of the audience.

The transition from peace time to the Japanese occupation period, for example, is treated with such callousness in the film that one suspects the characters were unmoved by the larger events as they unfolded too.

Next, the uneven pacing. One gets the impression that towards the last half-hour of the film, the pace is quickened as Directors Hsu and YIN are running out of time - so events are treated either in the form of conversations between Ing'er and Shaodung or a quick flashback.

As a result, for some of us, Fleeing by night is scenic overkill, a travelogue in place of a witty and absorbing movie or a believable love story. You get a genuine feeling that *something* is amiss. And then there is the score by Chris Babida that is neither here nor there. It straddles East and West at great length but to no great effect.

But the film is not all bad, really. Rene LIU is marvelous in tackling the role of Ing'er. YIN Chao-Te is also effective in grasping the subtlety which a solo performance in a Kun Opera entails. Some may even find him cute. *grin* The film also benefits from a high-quality production team.

Overall, for two hours, Fleeing by night never completely engages its audience and can be slow moving. It's entertaining nonetheless, free of pretense and self importance, and always eager to please. It's also not a gay film, per se, but a film that happens to have gay characters, that's all.