Comrades, Almost a Love Story (1996)

Absolutely Fantastic

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's been nearly 20 years since this movie came out and almost everything changed in China, but for me, this movie really describes the spirit and mentality and love and life of many Chinese in a quickly-changing world especially when they leave their hometown. The Chinese name of this movie is Tian Mi Mi, a very popular song at that time, one of the first things that brings some fresh air after the culture revolution. And there are many details and nuances in this movie that demonstrate that this movie is not just about love or relationship or romance, it's about life, the struggles of people between reality and dream, love and lost, etc.It tells me that what makes Chinese people still alive and happy after all those tragedies in life. Look forward, don't look back. Maybe it's related to the atheism of most Chinese, we know that 'this too shall pass" for everyone and everything, so we try our best to live, to love, to forget, to move on.

There are a lot of things to write about the film. It's a representative opus that builds great meaning from details. Is it real love between Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao? Would they been so engraved in the heart like this if there were not so many coincidences? If those two conditions establish both, is that to say, love can not be sublimed of stay in the story?In the movie, before everything begins, Li xiaojun and Li Qiao go to Hong Kong back-to-back in the same train by accident. There is a wording "Only sweethearts in love consider that everything happens by accident was destined before"（《Twelve Night》, 2000）, of another similar sentence "There's no coincidence in the world but only the illusion of coincidence, there exist something in the back of coincidence"（《V for Vendetta》,2005）. It's just like Qingxia simply choose her lover: anyone can extract my sword, I'll treat him without reservation.Love may often begin with some simple coincidences. It's just coincidences make us full of motive power, it's the biggest pill to stabilize their mind to the person who do not have much sense of direction or security. But in reality, there are not so many coincidences in life. We always expect for coincidence, live a calm life superficially, but we are still peep coincidence occurs. We all have the wish that something would happen in the future. For coincidence, we can surfer so many boring days, we are waiting for miracle arrives and that's the time we can free ourselves. If not, we can also keep the right to image.In those waiting days, time goes by, Li Xiaojun gets married, and Li Qiao is successful in her career. There leaves them two after they sent Xiaoting to work. So many days passed, and it just like they never lost it. Li Xiaojun has so many words want to tell her, so many topic can talk about, but traffic light passed one by one, there is still not even one word in the car.Li Xiaojun sees Deng Lijun in the moment, she was his spiritual ballast once upon a time. That can be a summary for his young years. Does it perfect? Does he satisfies even if he got the autograph? Those all because you keep them in your memory, I loved you, you abandoned me, we can not go back to the way we used to be even if time machine gives me the feelings of that moment. They cannot help but say goodbye. Finally, coincidence arrives.Heavy body run into steering wheel, harsh klaxon tweets. Though there are weighty responsibility, so many life goals that can not release, those burdens that push down them and leave them no room are penetrated by the klaxon. Music stops, Xiaojun goes back to her without hesitate and they kiss. That's my favorite moment of this movie. Then the story can stop, the coincidence would be as a full stop for those suffering.But in fact, they are separated even there is not 24 hours since they got back to each other. And this separation is more despair than any separations they had before. The movie approaches to reality till now. Coincidence is just presentation. People always attach it, that is exactly their own wishful thinking. As reality events, coincidences are what you eat today, what you dreamed last night, just like you read the passage I write. Coincidence is one part of life, it has no particularity. Sperm and ovum meet, then you born; screened by society time and time again, there you are. Those are all coincidences, everything you experience and you not experience are all coincidences. Only you can not realize that reality would never respect the things you image all the time.I always believe that the essence of people is tender. We all move forward and wonder what would happen next second. The more you desire for success, the more you love someone, the afraid in your heart would be more powerful. Once you got desire and then you would afraid to lose it. In this way, one could never grasp the sense of security in fact. And then coincidence turns to as our best spiritual ballast. Of course it's just a film, they get back to each other again, the ending is so beautiful. The moment they move their sight and then meet, they are both caim in heart. That's because of the screening by time, it's quiet after great rejoicing and great grief, it's deposition after so many days. There eyes tell me that they would live a calm life till old even if there is no coincidence.

Before watching this movie,i thought it to be a sweet,spotless love story.Then i found me wrong,and found more.The core of this film is love.But you can see the struggling of ordinary people to make a live, social pictures of HongKong before returning to China,and the long and difficult process to realize love'''The acting of Maggie(manyu zhang)is really vivid and impressive,better than that of (in the mood of love).The end is also affecting,making the chronicle way telling the story meaningful.

you will feel very good when you see an old "friend" who had special experience with you and made deep impression on you quite by chance in a place where far from your story happened place after a long time... [my pooooooooooor english, hope you could understand, cause we love this movie!!! THE BEST MOVE ABOUT EMOTION!!!]