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Nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards 2005:
Best Actress (Sylvia Chang)
Best Supporting Actress (Kate Yeung)
Nominations
at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards 2004:
Best Supporting Actress (Kate Yeung)
Best Supporting Actress (Angelica Lee)
It
started innocently enough as a concept album-idea where Sylvia
Chang brought in Angelica Lee and Rene Liu, two performers
she actually manages. One thing led to another and at the
2004 Berlin Film Festival, 20 30 40 premiered, a story
of three modern women of three different ages. What's interesting
about this is that all three actresses share story credit
as Sylvia wanted each to contribute from their own perspective
as 20-something, 30-something and Sylvia herself as the 40-something.
The stage is definitely set for something special as a whole
host of award-winning acting talent is assembled for this
one.
Director
Sylvia Chang dives deep into one form of pessimism, the subject
of denial, falling apart and an eventual putting together
again. Somewhere along the same lines of my liking of Princess-D
I walk on for 20 30 40. I.e., a minor pleasure, which
also means that Chang's work somewhere halt at a good level
only, despite clearly striving for something greater. Admittedly,
it's a better film and 20 30 40 really is one where
you let it sink in rather than being dazzled throughout. Despite
Princess-D being quite high on the visual jazz and
dazzle, Chang takes a suitable hands-off approach here and
by the way, whoever compared this to Sex & The City
surely based their idea on the basic plot synopsis only as
20 30 40 plays out more down to earth and real, thankfully.
For
her three subjects, all residing or ending up in Taipei, there
exists a number of different traits, yet they are alike in
their basic meaning. Breaking them down, Malaysian girl Xiao
Jie (Angelica Lee) has high aspirations to be a singer and
is paired up with Tong Yi (Kate Yeung) by washed out rock
manager Sie Ge (Anthony Wong), hoping to market them as singing
sisters (a not so subtle jab at The Twins). Not necessarily
naive but still possessing great dreams of fame and fortune,
Xiao Jie is met with a minimal nature to that dream and worse
conditions. This story differs since it's not immediately
about letting the character crash-land, but rather Xiao Jie
gradually is on her painful path of discovery. One that involves
a playful relationship with Tong Yi and brewing underneath
are stronger feelings.
Flight
attendant Xiang (Rene Liu, Best Supporting Actress Winner
at the Hong Kong Film Awards for her performance in Double
Vision) matches her fast and flying job with loose relationships
but quickly the Taipei earthquake reveals a fragile little
girl. It's soon apparent that her strong form of denial can't
be denied anymore as she's clearly hiding a larger depression
and a desire for long lasting happiness exists underneath
that tough exterior. And it sure hurts to come to that conclusion
and realization.
Sylvia
Chang herself is Lily, our 40-something, and after a slightly
too conveniently scripted setup that leads to her divorce,
it really becomes the more complex journey that any character
takes as Lily constantly goes back and forward in her approach
to her new single-status in life. If it's either working out,
having a short fling with her tennis teacher (Richie Ren)
or helping along a lone toy salesman (Tony Leung Kar-Fai)
in his struggling relationship, Lily always finds herself
back at that abandoned state and ultimately, the conclusion
for all of these is not greatly surprising but handled in
a fresh enough way for us to follow through.
Chang
has confidence in her material and certainly her background
as an actress allows her to get true performances out of her
cast but there sets in enough feelings of uneven pacing here.
The concious choice is certainly not that of fast-paced but
there is an art in making your slow choices flow well and
Sylvia isn't the master of that. Also, some slight forays
into comedy doesn't always play put well against the character
development, which is particular true for Richie Ren's scenes.
None of this really fails to achieve its goals, it's just
simply not always the smoothest ride. 20 30 40 certainly
exists for selected and patient audiences therefore. Two major
strength it does gain at the end is that events feel overall
more true to real life than to movie life, and it got fitting
performances to boot. By being non-intrusive, Chang immerses
herself, Angelica and Rene into the modern world of 20
30 40.
Angelica
Lee certainly is young but has proven she can emote both a
maturity and proves here that she can tackle the teenage mentality,
with truly compelling results. Rene Liu works out a great
performance, based on the two contrasting costume choices
for her character alone! The professional, flight attendant
Xiang seems unstoppable and seems to revel in her fast and
loose lifestyle. On the ground however, and in the confines
of her own home, there exists a younger and easily hurt girl,
something Sex & The City would never approach,
going back to that damn comparison. Sylvia Chang deserves
a big kudos as well as she's brave and unselfish enough to
make her age part of the narrative. Not that Chang doesn't
look great for her age but scenes when she's focusing on the
fact that she is aging are certainly not something women throw
themselves into just like that in movies. Anthony Wong brings
humanity to what could've been more of a campy character and
if you're wondering how the Chinese version of Old Jay (as
in Jay & Silent Bob) would look like, this
is it.
20
30 40 still resembles what I think is a factor in Sylvia
Chang's work as director, having only seen 2 of her films
in that capacity though. While all thematic intentions are
good, well-realized, acted and directed, it's consciously
not jumping out at you, I get that. However because of it,
it's not a drama home run either. On the whole, worthwhile
and its portrayal of modern women putting together their lives
for the first time or once more is worthy of appreciation.
The
DVD:
ERA
(Columbia's distributor in Hong Kong) presents the film in
a anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Sharpness and
colours looks steady throughout and print is clean.
The
Dolby Digital 5.1 track mainly consists of Mandarin but also
some sections are in Cantonese. Being very dialogue-based,
the track only comes to life, mainly in the front channels,
when larger effects do but does so in a good manner.
The
English subtitles are excellent, featuring no spelling or
grammar errors. Thankfully they're not the yellow font that
Columbia usually goes with but instead a nice white. Korean,
Thai and Chinese subtitles are also available.
Extras
come in the form of a 21 minute, 12 second making of
(with permanent Chinese and optional Korean subtitles only).
It goes through each respective character and actress, mixed
in with the odd glimpse of behind the scenes material but
not much else can be taken away from it for those of us who
don't understand the language. Trailers for Passionada,
Tokyo Godfathers and Warriors Of Heaven And Earth
are also included but strangely none for 20 30 40.
Also
included with the dvd is a promotional item in the form of
a small, vanilla-scented teddybear. What connection it has
with the film? I have no idea....but it's vanilla-scented.
reviewed
by Kenneth
Brorsson
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