Fridae

The Leap Years is the debut feature of Singapore director Jean Yeo. Based on a short story by Catherine Lim, it stars the always-lovely Wong Li Lin as a woman who only gets to celebrate her birthday every four years because she was born on February 29.

One day while passing by her favorite cafe, she spots a handsome stranger (Ananda Everingham of Shutter and Pleasure Factory fame) sitting by himself. She decides to write him an anonymous note, asking him to meet her that night at the cafe. He sportingly turns up, and they spend a romantic once-in-a-lifetime night together. They promise to meet every four years on her birthday � a promise they never break...

A rare Singapore-made romance floating in a sea of local comedies, The Leap Years betrays all the flaws of a debut feature filmmaker � competent but unimaginative direction, carefully-planned camera movements, and a moderately interesting storyline with very cliched dialogue � characters quote Shakespeare or Tennyson to elevate their mundane lines.

Thankfully, the actors' charisma sometimes pulls the movie through. Wong Li Lin and Ananda Everingham are charming, while Joan Chen is just lovely as the older version of Li Lin. Qi Yuwu, playing a rival love interest, continues to confound Singapore audiences by getting role after role in local movies despite being an absolutely terrible actor.

The Leap Years is not as good as we would have liked it to be, but it does have small patches of charm � um, small, really small.