Cinema chinês: Cape no. 7, Gimme Kudos

AMOSTRAS DE CINEMA CHINÊS

1. Cape no. 7, de Wei Te-Sheng
海角七号 Hǎijiǎo qī hào


In the 1940s, near the end of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, an unnamed teacher (Kousuke Atari) dispatched to the southernmost town of Hengchun falls in love with a local girl with the Japanese name Kojima Tomoko (Rachel Liang). After the Surrender of Japan, the teacher is forced to return home as the Chinese occupation of Taiwan resumed. On his trip home, he pens seven love letters to express his regret for leaving Kojima Tomoko, who originally planned to elope with him in Japan.

More than 60 years after the teacher left Kojima Tomoko, Aga (Van Fan) is introduced as a struggling young Hengchun-native rock band singer who could not find success in Taipei. After returning to his hometown, Aga's step father (Ju-Lung Ma), the Town Council Representative, arranged a position for him as a postman, replacing the aging Old Mao (Johnny C.J. Lin), on leave after a motorcycle accident broke his leg. One day, Aga comes across an undeliverable piece of mail that was supposed to be returned to the sender; the daughter of the now deceased Japanese teacher has decided to mail the unsent love letters to Taiwan after discovering them. Aga unlawfully keeps and opens the package to discover its contents, but the old Japanese-style address Cape No. 7, Hengchun County, Takao Prefecture can no longer be found. Meantime a local resort hotel inside Kenting National Park is organizing a beach concert featuring Japanese pop singer Kousuke Atari, but Aga's step father makes use of his official position to insist that the opening band be composed of locals.

Tomoko (Chie Tanaka), an over-the-hill Mandarin-speaking Japanese fashion model dispatched to Hengchun, is assigned the difficult task of managing this hastily assembled band, led by Aga along with six other locals of rather particular backgrounds. After a frustrating trial period, Aga and Tomoko unexpectedly begin a relationship. With some assistance from hotel maid Mingchu (Shino Lin), who is revealed to be Kojima Tomoko's granddaughter, Tomoko helps Aga find the rightful recipient of the seven love letters. Tomoko then tells Aga that she plans on returning to Japan after the concert because of a job offering. After returning the seven love letters, a heartbroken but determined Aga returns to the beach resort and performs a highly successful concert with his local band alongside Kousuke Atari, during which Tomoko accepts his love.

2. Gimme Kudos, de Huang Jianxin
求求你表扬我 Qiú qiú nǐ biǎoyáng wǒ


"Kudos'" story starts with a small event that gradually fans out to involve a wide number of people. In an unnamed city -- film was shot in Nanjing -- an offscreen narrator describes how his life changed one day when Yang Hongqi (Fan Wei) walked into his office, demanding kudos for having "saved someone."

Narrator is Gu Guoge (Wang Zhiwen), a senior reporter on an evening paper, and Yang is a tubby, working-class stiff from the outskirts. In a flashback, shot in mock-melodramatic style with rain and blue light, Yang tells how, on Feb. 14 (Valentine's Day), he saved a young woman, Ouyang Hua (Chen Hao), from being raped in the street. Yang wants Gu to publish the story for the record but, without any hard proof, the latter refuses. However, when Yang repeatedly returns to ask Gu about the story, Gu decides to track down the university student Yang said he saved.

When Gu finds Ouyang, she denies the incident; and the local cops, eager to prove their precinct is crime free, say they found no evidence of the attempted rape when Yang filed a report. Gu's editor (Liu Zifeng) says he won't publish anything without firm proof.

Classic set-up, in which a simple truth becomes mired in social etiquette, bureaucratic procedure and personal issues, comically spreads out to touch all areas of Gu's life, as well as China's history of the past 40 years. Gu's feisty cop wife, Miyi (Miao Pu), who keeps a punching bag in their apartment with his face on it, starts tailing him, suspicious of his interest in the babe-licious Ouyang. And when, in the countryside, Gu tracks down Yang's dying father, a loyal Party member, the truth slowly dawns about Yang's desperate need for public kudos.