Sound of Colors
Cantonese,
Mandarin with English Subtitles, 2004
Director: Joe Ma
Cast: Tony Leung
(In the Mood for Love, Hero, 2046), Miriam Yeung (numerous), Chang Chen
(Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2046), Dong Jie (Happy Times, 2046)
In
honor of summer and its association with lighter movies, I decided to review a
nice, romantic comedy—date movie if you will. First off, you should know that I
get sappy for nice, romantic comedies. And if it has a good story for a nice,
romantic comedy, then I am one happy viewer. “Sounds of Colors,” the subject of
this review, fits this mold for me, although in this case, you don’t get one
story, but two.
Story one, the primary story, is that of Cheung Hoi Yeuk (Miriam Yeung), a
young, blind woman who lives with her loving and devoted father. While she is on
her way to work one day, a man asks to borrow her walking stick in a Hong Kong
subway station. She agrees and with this one small act, her life is set on a
miraculous course. The man, who is really an angel, uses her stick to retrieve
some flyers for a matrimonial service and gives her one as a thank you. She
phones the service owned by Ho Yuk Ming (Tony Leung), but is used by him to get
out of trouble with one of his clients. Hoi Yeuk’s father finds the flier, and
later takes her to Yuk Ming’s agency without her knowledge. When she tells Yuk
Ming who she is and calls him a crook, he provides a thank you for saving his
company—one week of free services.
However, finding someone to go on a date with a blind woman turns out to be more
difficult than Yuk Ming expected, so he ends up going on the date with her,
trying to pretend that he is someone else. She recognizes his voice, he covers,
somewhat, by saying that he will keep her company until her date arrives, and
since her date never shows, they have dinner together. After dinner, they part
at the subway station, and it is obvious that she has fallen for Yuk Ming.
Yuk Ming doesn’t seem to share her feelings, especially since his last words
to her were “I’ll call you.” But fate again intervenes when Yuk Ming drinks some
slimming fruit juice and wakes the next morning to discover that he is blind. A
couple of days later, curious to find out why she cannot get in touch with him,
Hoi Yeuk, along with the security guard from the mall where Yuk Ming’s agency is
located, go to his home. She convinces him to see a doctor from whom he learns
that he is unlikely to regain his eyesight. Forced together by these
circumstances, Hoi Yeuk and Yuk Ming’s relationship grows. But will it last when
the angel again enters their lives?
Story two takes place in Taipei and Shanghai. In this story, Zhong Qing
(Chang Chen) plans to confess, in a Christmas card, his two-year old crush on a
pretty coworker. Soon after he writes it, the angel switches it with a business
Christmas card. When the woman of his dreams opens the business card, she
confronts him to ask if he thinks she is lousy at her job, and the shy man is
embarrassed in front of his coworkers. Meanwhile, the card confessing the crush
is sent to a woman in Shanghai. This woman, Dong Ling (Dong Jie), shares a
similar fate—the man of her dreams has just married. Broken hearted and thankful
for his card, she writes Zhong Qing telling him how she has spent the last two
years doing stupid things to be near this man who has gotten married and is
moving to Beijing. Zhong Qing decides to go to Shanghai to find her. When they
finally meet, they spend a day taking photographs of and being chased by people
kissing on the subway. Will they too end up together or apart?
Some may find the stories too manufactured and the switching of stories too
harsh. But these are actors that are fun to watch and stories that are
sweet. The cinematography and music are also a plus.
Is
this an emotionally complex, thinking movie? Nope, but sometimes, movie fans
just need something light and breezy, just like a warm, summer night.
