simonlife

After returning home from an awkward evening out in Collegetown the night before commencement, a few friends and I opted to further delay the coming of the following day’s festivities with a movie. Out of my roommate Chris’s collection of films, I selected Jay Chou’s Secret with the intention of challenging my unjustified doubts regarding the Taiwanese pop star’s talents in anything but song writing.

If a film that he directed could impress me in anyway, I would have to grant him the admiration owed to anyone who produces more than just a few soulful tunes. I am not a rigidly proud judge of artistic merit, so this would not be difficult, but I have, in the past, been wary of Jay Chou’s many talents. Objectively, he is an accomplished artist, and yet I have harbored a stubbornness that I think may stem from a jealous apprehension of others who do a lot of things well. Ultimately, Jay Chou is a classically trained musician, so that fact alone does well enough to leave me humbled.

I enjoyed Secret. I will not write a review (how much would that be worth?); I will instead try to explicate the feelings in evoked in me.

The movie is soaked in “aw”-factor. The main female figure who plays opposite Chou is super cute, and during the more light-hearted portions of the film, the two are constantly engaged in adoring exchanges not unfamiliar to fans of other Asian romantic comedies and dramas. It comes short of Cheeseville by an entertainingly small margin.

On all other fronts, I felt things watching this movie that I felt while watching My Sassy Girl. The two are completely unrelated in direction and thematic material, but there were senses of yearning and concern and unsettling mystery that characterized my experience with Secret that resounded with the Korean romantic comedy. Such feelings persist for a few hours even after finishing the movie, and I went to bed shortly thereafter with impressionistic images from the film floating around in my head. It was all very surrealistic.

I recommend this film to everyone who seeks something different.