Perhaps Love

Lin Jian-dong is a famous actor; ten years ago in Beijing he was with a girl who left him. He is now making a musical. The woman playing the lead is that former lover, Sun Na, and she is with Nie Wen, the director. She behaves as though she does not know him. The musical being filmed is about a woman who has lost her memory and two men trying to make her remember. Peter Chan directs. The cast includes Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhou Xun, Jacky Cheung and Ji Jin-hee. It was made at a time when the musical had almost disappeared from Chinese cinema and was positioned as an attempt to bring the form back. The structure has two layers: the musical being shot and the real relationship on set run into each other, and the narrative mixes them deliberately. Farah Khan choreographed the dances; she is among the best known choreographers in Indian cinema and the choice shapes the visual language. Peter Pau is the cinematographer, and the use of colour and light was the most praised element. The subject is remembering and choosing to forget. Sun Na denies the past, and the film presents that not as a lie but as a method of survival. It won a number of Hong Kong Film Awards. Who it is for: viewers who like Asian musicals and stories about settling with the past. Who it is not for: the transitions between the two layers are confusing, the songs interrupt the narrative, and the emotional pitch is high.