Turn Left, Turn Right (2003)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Expected more

Absolutely Fantastic

A Masterpiece!

Heung joh chow heung yau chow (Turn Left, Turn Right) is a heart-warming love story. There I said it. o0o0ps I gotta write a minimum of 10 lines? Alright, here goes.It's a story of two person, who met in school & then lost contact, then met some few years after, only to lost contact again. Weird, but fascinating! They only know each other by their school identification number, they don't know other info i.e whereabouts, much less their favorite food, color, etc..etc.. Even the phone number they exchanged got lost.Little did they know that they were destined to be together! They don't even know that they were very close to each other wherever they went. Say, when she was standing in a train, he was sitting down while reading a newspaper. Such a coincidence! Watch as they 'worked' hard to find each other. They did the same thing, i.e the way they talk, the way they they think, even their interests are the same too! The ending is too unbelievable but an original, nonetheless! I don't think audiences can figure out the ending!

I accidentally came across this movie on a flight from Phoenix to Jakarta. I was half asleep. I think the airline was EVA air. I wasn't interested at all because they showed it on such a tiny screen and I definitely hate having to read subtitle on such a small screen.Kanenshiro Takeshi catched my attention. I thought to myself: well, it might worth watching. I was sure glad that I watched it.The movie turned out to be an excellent one. I really liked it! I think it's the best romantic movie of the century! The plot was excellent. Then there were the twists, the intrigues, the great ending. Not too much drama going on, unlike Hollywood romantic movies, this movie was just plain romantic in a pleasant way. The comedy scenes were not out of place and made it even more fun to watch.I even dragged my husband to watch it at home and he got pretty carried away by the intrigues.This is definitely a movie worth seeing.

Turn Left Turn Tight is based on the best-selling illustrated love story of the same name by renowned Taiwanese author/artist, Jimmy Liao.The story revolves around dashing John Liu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), an inspiring violinist and Eve Choi (Gigi Leung), a professional translator. Like millions living in a large city, John and Eve lead lives of solitude. Despite staying in the same apartment building, their paths never cross. One day, while walking around a fountain in the park, they finally bump into each other... and it's love at first sight! Unfortunately, a sudden shower cuts the encounter short. They manage to exchange telephone numbers but the rain renders the phone numbers illegible.Inseparable partners, directors Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai who have worked together on many projects like Running On Karma, Love On a Diet, Love for All Seasons & etc, manage to recreate the magic of Jimmy Liao's story on the big screen. Even the lovely soundtrack with three songs by Gigi Leung blends well in a 'supporting' role. The pacing of the movie is just right. The audience will be in constant anticipation of the couple's next meeting, as meddling acquaintances, a former schoolmate (Edmund Chen), a food delivery girl (Terri Kwan) and pure bad luck, conspire to keep the would-be-lovers apart.Meanwhile the leads, Takeshi and Gigi, share good on-screen chemistry together, albeit briefly. Of course the two had previously appeared together in the 1999 romantic hit film, Tempting Heart.Turn Left Turn Right is a charming movie worth watching at least twice.

I am normally a fan of Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai, though lately I have found they forays outside of macho, all-male films a bit distressing. Stylized though films such as Chung Fo and PTU were, films such as Running on Karma and Turn Left Turn Right can not but make me wonder about if they have any sort of talent outside of the genre made great by the likes of John Woo.The film, based on a story by Jimmy, a comic book writer of a gloomy variety from Taiwan, takes the premise that two people who, having met once when they were small, are fated to take on lives which parallel each other's. Without giving too much away, it follows the typical boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl routine. Fair and well. But the good things I have to say end here.<Chip on shoulder warning>It is difficult to take a film seriously when it attempts to portray a violinist who is supposed to be good enough to be hired from Taiwan to work for an orchestra in Vienna, when the actor himself can not be bothered to learn to hold a violin properly, let alone bowing properly to the music he was supposed to be playing. Equally, it is difficult to root for a girl who get scared translating German horror novels into Chinese, when her very job was translation of such texts. Perhaps the use of the Polish poet, and her poem, served some dramatic purpose which eludes me, though I suspect its only purpose was to show how "classy" and "refined" our heroin was. But the Chinese translation she kept mumbling on about was so badly done, so hard on the ears, so devoid of literary artistry that it only served to alienate me, the audience, rather than giving me the sense of fate and romance that it was supposed to. In short, two rather lacking actors playing two unconvincing and rather lacking characters. Apt, perhaps. Interesting? No.Then there was the supporting cast. I fail to understand what the script writer and the director thought throwing two comical supporting characters into what should have been a gloomy film, shot all in a grey tone, would achieve. The moment I laid eyes on them, in the midst of what would otherwise have been a delicate and sensitive story about fate and unrequited love, I wanted to reach into the screen and slap them silly.Though the premise was interesting, the film grew tiring very quickly when every scene has to be repeated, almost verbatim, once, by the other leading character. That was simply a clumsy and sloppy way of showing how their lives parallel each other, and was very trying on the audience's patience. Effectively, the film could well have been cut into 50 minutes and be done with.Perhaps I should say that the script writer and director should be lauded for their ability to take a perfectly interesting idea and making it uninteresting, and taking a cast for whom we would potentially have sympathy for and making them formulaic and laughable.