Tuesday, June 25, 9:15 pm, Victoria Theatre • Bay Area première •
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| Song Lang |
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| Cải Lương (Vietnamese opera) |
First, a bit of background on the title: Song Lang with no accent marks refers to two small pieces of wood joined by a piece of spring steel, used to keep time in a musical performance, not to be confused with Sống Là ng, Sông Lạng, or Song Lãng, which are three completely different things.
Most of the first half of the film is just setting the stage for the two main characters to finally have some one-on-one interaction. Dùng (Liên Binh Phát, pictured left) is a thug employed by the local loan shark to collect debts. One of the debtors is an opera (cải lương) company, and Dùng meets Linh Phụng (Isaac, pictured right), the lead singer. They bond through bar brawls and video games, slowly moving closer to a personal connection even though the outside world (and in particular the loan shark) leaves little room for them. It was beautiful in many ways, but spent so very long establishing Dùng as a thug, then slowly melting his shell via childhood flashbacks, that we hardly had time for the love story to begin before the operatic ending of the movie.
I wasn’t a big fan of the director’s previous short film, Dawn (Frameline 38). This feature film is better, but only enough so to be Recommended.
• IMDb • Facebook: @SongLangTheMovie •
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